School leaders
Welcome to the Two Mile State School leader's page. Our School Captains for 2023 are Harlon and Laura.
Each year the school is divided into two houses. One house is called Sadowa (green) and the other is Araluen (red). The seniors in each house are voted for and become the leaders of their house.
The houses are named for Two Mile European pioneers.......the alluvial miners and the reef miners.
Araluen (Red)
Leader: Zahli
Araluen house is named after the Araluen gold field at Two Mile. The Two Mile School oval was part of this gold field before the school was established and shallow gold workings can still be seen in the paddock beside the school oval on the northern side. The pond in the Two Mile grounds was dug out as part of these early alluvial mining operations. Early Two Mile students often built cubby houses in the abandoned shallow workings of the Araluen gold field before they were filled in to make the original Two Mile School oval. Miners washed their pay dirt in the Araluen waterhole which is now part of the forestry museum grounds. When the school was established the students of Two Mile School used this waterhole as a swimming pool. The waterhole once had a small church beside it on the pile of rubble left over from gold panning in the waterhole, but it was blown away in a storm in the early part of last century. There is a historic gold ghost town of Araluen in the heart of the Southern Tablelands in New South Wales dating from 1851. The Two Mile Araluen was probably named after this goldfield.
Sadowa (Green)
Leader: Ayla
Sadowa house is named after a Two Mile reef mine. The shaft was sunk where the Forestry Convention Centre car park is now. It was quite a productive mine. The school historical photo collection has excellent photos of the Two Mile Sadowa mine. The Sadowa Mine was operated by Prussian miners who named it after a famous European battle. The Battle of Sadowa, resulted in a Prussian victory over the Austrian army on 3 July 1866, ending the Seven Weeks' War. It confirmed Prussian control over the German states. It was very common for mines to be named after successful mines on other gold fields. There was a very successful Sadowa Gold mine in Victoria from 1867 to 1870, about the same time as the Two Mile Sadowa mine was in operation.
When enrolment numbers are large enough to allow, a third House, Dawson, is implemented.
Dawson (Blue)
Dawson house is named after the Dawson family who were early farmers at the Two Mile. Their daughter, Miss Alisa Dawson visited the school frequently even before she was enrolled as a Two Mile student as a four year old. Miss Dawson was a Two Mile student during the time Major Alan Nash was headmaster. She was here when Mrs Nash received the telegram telling her that her husband had been killed at Gallipoli. Miss Dawson had an excellent memory for the history of the Two Mile district and wrote the Two Mile centenary book as well as several children's books. In her later years Alisa Dawson was highly regarded as Gympie's unofficial historian. In the early years of the Gympie Gold Field, many of the dairy farms that supplied milk to the miners were in the Two Mile area. There were also many small crop farms and Chinese gardeners who produced fruit and vegetables on small farms in the Two Mile area. There was a vineyard across the road from the school on the banks of Gympie Creek. The Dawson family had a popular restaurant on their strawberry farm known as Strawberry Gardens. People travelled out to Two Mile from Gympie in horse drawn vehicles as part of their Sunday drive, and often stopped for strawberries and cream at the Dawson family Strawberry Gardens.