Vale Dudley Cowan
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 130 No 2, 11 April 2025, page no 6.
Dudley Cowan was the 83rd member of the QTU to be awarded life membership for long and outstanding service to the Union and its members. When awarded life membership, he was described as staunch, reliable, enthusiastic, calm, sincere, and dedicated.
Dudley was:
- a school Union Representative from 1982 until he retired in 2006
- President or Secretary of the local QTU branch from 1982
- a representative on an Area Council covering a whole education department region from 1984
- a member of the Union’s supreme decision-making body, the State Council, from 1984 until 2006
- a member of the QTU Executive from 1990 until he retired
- a QTU Trustee from 2001 until 2006.
In all these positions – and in many others – he was an active contributor and left lasting contributions to Union policy and procedures. And he did all this as a primary classroom teacher turning up every day to teach students.
Dudley will be remembered as a speechmaker. He was a Toastmaster after all, and someone the Union occasionally used to teach members how to prepare and deliver formal speeches. He knew how to command a room. On Council, when Dudley prepared to enter a debate and make a speech of importance, he would stand, button his jacket, and walk with purpose toward the microphone at the front of the room. You could hear a pin drop.
In 1993, when the Goss Labor government made cuts to education in the budget, QTU members voted to go on strike for 24 hours for the first time in a decade. At the meeting at Festival Hall, Dudley was given a pivotal speech to make. He excoriated the government for its cuts to education. His memorable big finish was predicting that unless the government mended its ways, and I quote: “the Goss gloss will end in a dull… matt… finish.” Thousands of teachers leapt to their feet to applaud easily the best speech they heard that day and for many years either side. And he was right.
Dudley would give calm and yet forceful advice, and his approach was balanced, uncompromising and discerning. He was truly one of the QTU’s experienced statesmen. Vale Dudley.