There's no business like show business

This month Peter Forrest looks at the
Tennant Creek show and its origins

Like most good things in Tennant Creek, the town's show is an outcome of community effort. First, it takes the imagination, enthusiasm and determination of one or two people to start things happening, and then the bandwagon starts to roll.
Mick Smith was one of the people who started things happening in Tennant Creek in 1980, when there were proposals that the town should have a show.
Back in 1980 Mick was Chief Inspector of Police for Tennant Creek and the Barkly region. Nowadays Mick is a doyen of the real estate profession in Darwin, and it was in Darwin that I caught up with him to get the story of the early years Tennant's show.
"I was posted to Tennant Creek in September 1979. I had the belief that it was very important for the police force to be connected with the whole community, and I wanted to see police involvement in local activities.
"So I said yes when I was asked to join a steering committee which had been set up to try and get a show going in the town. Before long I was the President of the committee.
"The committee had been going for some years, but there were no definite steps toward a show. The sideshow people used to pass through Tennant Creek, on a circuit which started at Mount Isa, then brought them across to Alice Springs, then back up the track to Katherine and Darwin.
"There was a spare weekend in the schedule, and we thought we had a chance to get the showmen to stop in Tennant, and to have a show of our own. I felt we had to act quickly, so I said in early 1980 "Lets get it started this year."
"Most other people said, "Oh no, that is too soon, only four months away we will never get organised in time".
"But I said "Its now or never. It's got to be this year, that's the way it is." Karen Sheldon, who was a great worker for the committee and a real driving force behind the whole idea, backed me up.
"We won the day, and so we got cracking to organise that first Tennant Creek show. I put a notice in the paper saying that we wanted 100% community participation, and I think in the end we virtually achieved that.
"My wife Joan was an artist, and she and Mrs. Lawrie Bradford, a bank manager's wife, organised the Arts and Craft Section. They went to the schools, encouraging every child to put something in. It was wonderful to see parents being dragged through the arts and crafts pavilion by children saying "Look at that one, that's mine."
"We had entries from people like Bill Fullwood and Miriam Hagan, so there was a fair bit of talent there. I suppose Bill will have entries this year too, wonderful stalwart that he is. Eventually, Bill Maclean won the Art Section Champion award, with Joan Smith runner-up.
"We had a judge come up from Alice for the arts entries, and I think we even brought up a judge from Sydney for the livestock sections. We didn't want anyone saying that it wasn't fair dinkum, or that the standards weren't up to it.
"We said that anyone who had something they wanted to show off could enter in the show, we would create a section for it. So we got tremendous community support and participation.
"We got the side show people in, and the government too. The government departments supported us very well, and it was a great chance for them to show people in the Barkly area what they were doing, and to get feedback form the local community. Local industry was very good too.
"Overall, there was tremendous support from the town and general community, it was a real thrill to get all the involvement. The reward for the town was a public holiday for the show, which Tennant Creek hadn't had before.
"We staged the show on the Purkiss Reserve. We got wonderful support from the Council, led by that great townsman Alfie Chittock, and backed up by Bruce McRae, who also served us well as the first show secretary.
"In 1980 we were the territory's first show on the circuit. The sideshow people stopped in Tennant on their way from Mt Isa to Alice Springs. Later the sequence was changed, and they went to Alice first, then stopped in Tennant on the way up the track to Darwin.
"One of our good ideas was to have a de-briefing session after the show. The show was held on Friday and Saturday, and on the Sunday we put on a big barbecue for everyone who had been involved.
"We asked everyone for comments, what was right, what was wrong. We wrote it all down, and that was the basis for planning for the next year. It saved a lot of mistakes being repeated, and it made it so much easier to get things started the following year.
"That first show was a wonderful success, and I think it had really positive results for Tennant Creek. It made the town a focus for the Barkly region, brought the bush people in. And it made the town take pride in showing itself off as one of the Territory's major centres. Virtually everyone attended.
"I stayed on as President over the next few years until I left Tennant toward the end of 1982. By that time Bob Thompson was show secretary, and he did a marvellous job in putting together a submission that Tennant should have a joint use race track and show ground, associated with the new high school.
"When I got up to Darwin I was able to give that proposal a push along in government circles, and it all happened.
Soon after his transfer to Darwin, Mick was asked by Police Commissioner Peter McAuley to work out strategies for police involvement in the community right across the Territory. Among of the first outcomes of Mick's work in this area was the schools based constables program, and DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). Community policing in the Territory had begun.
It wasn't long before there was interstate interest in the Territory scheme. Western Australia sent a delegation to observe the Territory experiment, and soon followed suit. Mick was asked to got to Sydney and Melbourne to advise on the Territory programs.
The Junior Police Rangers was another initiative to commence at this time. It is still going strong.
Mick held the rank of Commander when he left the police force in 1994. He had made a difference - to Tennant Creek, and to the whole Territory when he showed that his ideas about police involvement in the community, which he had tested in Tennant, would work everywhere else.