A 40-year tradition has come to a close as the last iteration of the Golden Oldies, a group of former students that met annually and raised funds for the Broken Hill High School, steps down due to old age.
Margot White, who had been the Golden Oldies treasurer since 2008, said the closing of the group signified the end of an era.
“It is time for me to step down, at 91 the ink in my biro is running out,” she said.
“My brain is still willing, but the body is not.”
The original Golden Oldies committee was formed in 1983, with students who graduated in 1933 celebrating not only 50 years since they graduated, but 100 years since Broken Hill was founded.
The first reunion began with a small group of 1933 graduates advertising in newspapers across Australia to track down fellow students and inviting them to return home for a celebration.
This reunion spurred the former classmates to organise an annual reunion to keep in touch, and eventually to hold fundraisers and donate money to their former high school.
Any student who had graduated from Broken Hill High School in 1933 was eligible to be part of the group, and in later years the rule became graduates who were over 50 years of age or attended the high school during its first year of opening in 1920.
Ms White, whose cousin was involved with the original Golden Oldies, was treasurer until this year when the committee addressed the community for the final time in May.
“They had such a response from around Australia that they decided, ‘what are we going to do now? We’ve got to have the reunion,’” she said.
Ms White became part of the committee alongside her friend Noni Wilson, after the original members died or were too old to participate.
“I became the treasurer and Noni became the co-ordinator,” she said.
“Noni inherited all the records that Maureen had. No one had been the co-ordinator; Maureen had done it all herself with helpers.”
Ms White said she opted to help Noni with handling the funding side of the committee because it was too much for one person.
“It’s too much money. You can’t do it on your own,” she said.
“It’s an organisation where you’re accountable for other people’s money. There was a membership. We needed to have the structure of a group.
“So, I said, ‘let’s form a structured committee and have regular meetings.’”
The group, through its annual event, began raising considerable funding through membership costs, raffles and reunion tickets.
“At the end we were making a good bit of money, so we decided that instead of just giving the money to the school to use like usual, we asked the school what they’d like us to do with it,” she said.
The school, alongside the Golden Oldies, decided to create a scholarship for students in Year 11 to encourage them to stay in school and continue studying.
The group committed $1000 every year towards this, with the scholarship being $750, including a literary prize of $50, and the remaining $200 would go to the school to help children whose parents couldn’t fund excursions or extra curriculars.
As of 2024 the group had 395 members, not including partners, each paying $5 membership.
“Up until last year, which was our last year, we were still invited to the high school for a Monday assembly to present the cheque and we’d have a speaker deliver a short speech,” she said.
As is the story with many community groups, as the committee aged and became smaller, it struggled to find younger replacements.
In the Golden Oldies’ final address in their last regular school magazine, Ms White authored a final notice announcing the closure of the Golden Oldies and that the annual reunions would end.
“Times have changed, meet and greet has changed, our era is gone,” Ms White wrote in the notice.
Following the end of the group, the next generation of past students have agreed to donate a small amount every year to the existing school fund, but not to continue the Golden Oldies group due to other commitments.
