Bourke loses its ‘Outback Historian’

Paul Roe with his wife Robyn on a recent trip to Bourke. Photo: Ian Cole

There are few people who know Bourke as well as ‘The Outback Historian’, Paul Roe.

His love of the town and its people is there for all to see in the bricks and mortar of the Back O’Bourke Exhibition Centre, which he pioneered two decades ago.

Paul’s influence is found all over Bourke, and beyond, through his storytelling, his local history articles and books, in the children he taught at the Pera Bore Christian Community School and the students who passed through the Cornerstone Christian Community over several decades.

Together with his wife Robyn, Paul has pastored a church, shaped a Christian School, taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to thousands, served as a Bourke Shire Councillor and on the board of Outback Radio 2WEB, inspired the creation of the Back O’Bourke Exhibition Centre and produced a mass of local oral and written history – while raising a family in the shearer’s quarters at Pera Bore west of Bourke.

Paul’s pioneer stories were often about men and women of faith, and he always said that faith is so woven into our culture, we don’t recognise it.

He said that he did not want to ‘inflict religion on people’, rather to remind people that faith is in our Aussie DNA.

Paul’s story will be told in full later, but for now, we are thankful for the stories he told on 2WEB and through The Western Herald. He will be sadly missed, and our sympathies are with his wife Robyn, his children Chris, Jonathan, Alison and Peter and their families.

A graveside service for Paul Roe of Dubbo, previously of Bourke will be held at the Bourke Cemetery Thursday 1 October from 11am. A memorial service will be also held at the Dubbo Baptist Church on Saturday 3 October from 2pm.