A SIXTH jointly-funded shearing and wool handling school at the Kenny family's Rubicon farm, Badgingarra, has turned out the best job-ready graduates.
That was the view of Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) shearing instructor and Australian Shearing Hall of Fame inductee Kevin Gellatly at the graduation ceremony at the end of the two-week school on July 30.
"We've had six of these (shearing and wool handling schools jointly funded by AWI and the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and supported by the Western Australia Shearing Industry Association) and I would say without a doubt you are the best lot," Mr Gellatly told graduates.
"If you want it, you could find a job on Monday with shearing contractors if you ring them up."
Dongara-based Henderson Shearing contractor Mike Henderson, who facilitated the school, agreed.
"If they ring me I'd take the lot on," Mr Henderson said.
AWI wool handling instructor Amanda Davis said 13 novice shearers and wool handlers attended the first week and seven of those continued on in the second week and made up half of the graduates of an improvers' school for those who already has some experience but wanted to learn more.
Hosts Mike and Sara Kenny, their son Andrew and his wife Gina were praised for the effort they put into keeping 1800 ewe hoggets dry for the school to shear, trucking some daily from a shed on another part of the farm across to the shearing shed.
Mike Kenny quipped that in a dry year he would host another shearing school because it had rained for eight of the 10 days it was held.
Plans for a seventh AWI/ DPIRD school are being prepared, but a location has not been finalised.
