Seasons Sinnamon Park resident Libby Wager, relaunched her local history book Focus on Pullenvale at a book launch held at the community on November 28, 2019.

Libby’s body of work includes six books. This includes the Wager’s Ageless Series reference which is a 1350 page alphabetical index of local historic information and images compiled over many years of research.

Focus on Pullenvale was first published in 1988. It was out of print when Kenmore and District Historical Society got in touch with Libby to see how she felt about republishing the publication.

“Libby has written so much about the local area. However, so much of it was out of print and hard to get. So, society member John Carter took the baton to work with Libby to rework the book and republish it,” says Kenmore and District Historical Society President Judy Magub.

“We were successful in getting a Lord Mayor Community grant to pay for new layout and design. It came up so well.”

The resulting publication builds on the 1988 edition. With additional material sourced by the Kenmore and District Historical Society, as well as original photographs and information collected by the Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre.

“It was a joy to work with Libby to help bring the book back to life,” says John.

“Libby has an incredible memory – names, dates, who married who. So we extended chapters and worked in information from Libby’s other books.”

Founding Principal of the Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre Ron Tooth spoke at the book launch about his long term friendship with Libby. He mentioned how Libby was a driving force in helping create the environmental centre.

“I was a young teacher taking over a one-teacher school in 1982, the original Pullenvale State School. With a brief to bring students here and do something with nature and history,” says Ron.

“I presented at a public meeting and Libby was there and said, ‘you need me’. With Libby’s help and her network of people within Pullenvale, we created the Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre.

“It all started with Libby and our dream. And having worked with Libby on the original publication, all produced on photocopiers, we now have this fabulous book! It’s delightful that the book’s been published.”

The process, which took about 12 months, has led to Libby planning new books.

“Revisiting the book reminded me of all these stories still untold. Rather than add them in this book I started to think that this new material could form new books,” says Libby.

If the reaction to the relaunch is anything to go by, any new material from Libby will be highly anticipated.

“It was great to celebrate the launch surrounded by my family, friends and local historians and share a poem. I was kept busy signing books. We ended up selling 25 copies, so it went really well,” says Libby.

To purchase a copy of Libby’s book Focus on Pullenvale visit the Kenmore and District Historical Society Inc website.