Recipient proud to receive OAM honour

A committee member of the Wyalkatchem CBH Agricultural Museum 1980-2014, one of those responsible for its comprehensive agricultural machinery collection, its president for 15 years and an honorary life member, Mr de Pierres received his OAM for services to the Wyalkatchem community.

"I'm very proud and honoured," he said on Monday after the honours were announced.

"But in a small community like Wyalkatchem though, there are always many others who have made significant contributions to the community too but who haven't been recognised.

"There are a number of others I can think of who are deserving of recognition and they are close in my thoughts today."

Mr de Pierres was one of a small group who convinced the CBH Group to leave a curved corrugated iron D class grain bin with a tin floor, dating from 1936, when the rest of the bins were demolished in the 1980s.

As the oldest preserved grain bin in WA, it now forms one of the main buildings of the local agricultural museum which has been combined with a Wheatbelt tourist visitor centre.

The museum has more than 500 items on display, some dating back to 1900, and features a collection of 40 restored tractors - some now very rare.

"I was one of the early presidents (of the Wyalkatchem CBH Agricultural Museum) and during my tenure I and a couple of others realised that a lot of the old machinery that was just laying around on farms at that time wasn't going to be there forever," Mr de Pierres said.

"Our little committee set about collecting what we could of it.

"I'm very pleased to see that so much has been restored.

"I'm disappointed though that along with the wheat bin we weren't able to save the old railway bridge and the old water tank, but they were said to be unsafe."

A major on-going health problem forced Mr de Pierres to retire from the museum committee and also from farming as a third generation member of a French family which came to Wyalkatchem in 1913.

"After I was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, and without a son to run the farm, I started to ease up on how much I did and began a planned withdrawal from farming," he said.

"I had a leasing regime with a mate for six to eight years and that worked very well, but I sold most of the property in 2010.

"I still keep my hand in by helping out a few mates when they need it, driving the chaser bin, that sort of thing - you don't get 40 years' of experience when you hire backpackers."

Mr de Pierres' interest in history, particularly local and military history, has resulted in him researching, writing and self-publishing a number of books.

They include the military service history of the alumni of his old school, St Louis School, Claremont, Loretto Convent school and John XXIII College which was created after the schools combined in 1977.

His military history books include Boer War to Vietnam service records of Wyalkatchem and Yilgarn residents and the story of the "Wheatbelt Warriors", the 15th WA Battalion Volunteer Defence Corps from the dark days of WWII when threat of Japanese invasion was feared.

A national serviceman conscripted into the Army, Mr de Pierres served 18 months in the infantry in Vietnam in Phuoc Tuy Province from 1971, following in the footsteps of his father, Stanley, who served as an artilleryman with French colonial forces there in WWII.

"We were in the same province 30 years to the month apart," he said.

A French citizen living in Wyalkatchem in 1939, Mr de Pierres' father had been called up for active service by the Vichy French government but was diverted to then Indochina to protect French interests against the Japanese, Thais and fledgling Vietnamese Nationalist Movement, the Viet Minh.

He detailed his father's experience, along with another 64 French nationals from Australia who had similar experiences in the early days of WWII, in a book titled Under Two Flags.

Mr de Pierres hopes to publish his latest book, on Australians who served in the French Foreign Legion, in August.

He has also written his family's history and the Wyalkatchem Bulldogs Football Club history 1914-1994 - Mr de Pierres played almost 300 games in the ruck for the Bulldogs and is a life member of the club.

"I tend to look for obscure pieces of history that no one else is going to record and then I research and write about them," he said.

Mr de Pierres, who plays the guitar, and his wife Colleen - they have daughters Madeleine and Juliane - have also been involved in writing and producing with local amateur actors and singers five musicals over the years.

The last one, Soldiering On, was written and performed last year in Wyalkatchem and Dowerin in recognition of the centenary of the first ANZAC landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Mr de Pierres is also a member of the Wheatbelt Warblers, a community choir.

His OAM citation lists his extensive community contribution over a lifetime in Wyalkatchem.

It includes more than 40 years' with the Wyalkatchem and Yorkrakine Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade, president of the community Wylie Weekly newspaper since 1999 and St John Ambulance volunteer 2009-14.

He was Wyalkatchem Catholic Church parish organiser and a Wyalkatchem Returned and Services League committee member 1972-2014 and a member of the Wyalkatchem Tennis Club 1986-2010, including multiple terms as president and club captain.

Mr de Pierres was Wyalkatchem shire's Australia Day Citizen of the Year 1999.

In all, 52 West Australians were named in the Queen's Birthday Honours.