Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Shakespeare had it, what is in a name? Take a relatively unassuming sort of name like Ellen Chapman. There was an Ellen Chapman who in 1912 was president of the Women's Social and Political Union, a suffragette who had to wait another 16 long years before women in Britain finally got the vote. Then there was a very different Ellen Chapman who in 2004 was crowned Miss California USA.

There was yet another Ellen Chapman—a young country schoolteacher who was appointed by the Queensland government to teach a school of just 11 students in the Coolum School of Arts Hall, where classes commenced on Monday, 2 April 1917. It is exactly 100 years ago this Sunday since Ellen Chapman, Coolum's first schoolteacher, gave her first lesson.

And so what is in a name, Mr Speaker? Well, in the name Ellen Chapman, you would find a proud 100-year legacy of a school that has operated through war, drought and depression through to this very day and now with over 1000 students and a principal of over 20 years' standing, who is following in the footsteps of Ellen Chapman, and some of the best teachers in Queensland. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, happy 100th to Coolum State School.