LAST Sunday the North Queensland Register’s Jim Pola and his wife Janelle attended the staff Christmas party at the Federal Parliament House, after receiving an invitation late in the week that the family was invited.
Jim’s eldest daughter Belinda sent the invitation to mum and dad. Belinda, a former St Patricks, Townsville and JCU student where she graduated in Commerce and Law, is now a policy advisor to the Prime Minister.
While talking with the Prime Minister, Jim said Mr Abbott expressed deep concern for the plight of graziers and their families in drought afflicted Northern Australia.
They both agreed the only solution was rain and hoped that nature would deliver an early Christmas present to end one of the worst droughts on record.
Jim Pola will be leaving Fairfax Media and the North Queensland Register on December 5, after 25 years of service. This photo in some way represents the extraordinary depth of contacts – politically, business-wise and through to the average worker that he established.
The contacts he developed within the grazing community in Queensland and the Northern Territory are irreplaceable and he will be sorely missed at the North Queensland Register.
The staff at the North Queensland Register wishes him and the family all the best for the future.
FORMER North Queensland Register Editor Ashley Walmsley pays tribute to Jim's time at the rural paper.
Upon arrival at the office of the North Queensland Register in 2002, I was taken into the office of one Jim Pola.
Those two deep, dark eyes looked up as his rough voice shot forth: “Are you ready to work?”
It was an imposing introduction but one that quickly followed with a handshake and husky laugh.
Jim would later say to me: “If you can work here, you can work anywhere.”
I now see why.
I’d heard plenty about Jim before moving to Townsville, mostly from those who hadn’t worked alongside him.
Six years down the track of working at the Reggie, I’d like to think I’d gained a sense of what makes the man tick.
Jim is a rough diamond. A very rough diamond.
Everyone has a Jim Pola story, even those who haven’t met him. There are so many it’s hard to know which ones actually happened and which ones have been fanned into urban legends.
From being told at gunpoint to get back onto the tour bus whilst trying to disembark and get a photo in Colombia, to filling a diesel Holden Jackaroo with unleaded, there are plenty of stories, many of which can’t be reprinted here.
I once witnessed Jim leap back from the sparks of a short-circuiting office microwave before cursing loudly and ordering one of the staff to reach in and switch it off.
Another time I answered the office phone to hear a gasping breath pour out “Ahhh, geez, Ash, I was almost killed,” which turned out to be a blown tyre on the way back from Hughenden.
There were days of downright hair-tearing, raised-voice, beating-your-head-against-a-wall frustration.
A memory card would be handed over, the pictures downloaded, and instructions given to “ring that sheila from Elders” because it was assumed she’d know all the faces for the captions.
But this would dissipate when an esky load of prawns and mud crabs would be hauled into the office as the backdoor burst open and an announcement made to “help yourself”.
There is always a scheme or project going on an overseas junket; a “sure bet” share market buy; an advertising feature; a Brazilian gaucho hat business; the list goes on.
Everyone who has a Jim escapade story has an equal number of “good time” stories where Jim was the host. He loves people.
“Faces and places, that’s what sells papers,” Jim would mutter as we put together a page of photos, many with generic captions.
Of all his Register editorial contributions, nothing provoked more conversation than the famous/infamous, ‘Cowboys Comment.’
For more than a decade during the rugby league season, Jim shared his thoughts on the North Queensland Cowboys’ performance.
In other words, he tore strips off them.
On a few occasions I had the task of re-interpreting a crumpled piece of paper scrawled with various phrases and quotes, with the aim of working it into a legible column.
It might have been rough, it might not have been grammatically correct, but they read it and they loved it. Or loved to hate it.
Though I’m no longer in Townsville, I imagine the office will, in a strange way, miss his habit of hollering for Pam or Jo, barking at Jason, and answering phone calls from potential clients with treacle-laced tonsils, promising the world.
His influence is so deeply pressed into the fabric of this paper it will always carry a bit of the Tropical Cowboy within it, even without him in the office.
Good luck Jim, thanks for the memories, now go hitch that boat trailer on.
