Order of the British Empire - Officer (Civil) 1937.,
Biographical notes
Adelaide Miethke was founder of the 'School of the Air in Alice Springs'. Born in 1881 at Manoora, South Australia, the daughter of Carl Rudolph Alexander Miethke, a school master, and Emma Carline Louis nee Schultze.
Adelaide had a distinguished career in Education in South Australia, retiring as Inspector in 1941. During the Second World War she raised money some of which 'went to the (Royal) Flying Doctor Service; Miethke, a friend of John Flynn, was the State branch's first woman president in 1941 and edited Air Doctor. In 1946 while travelling to Alice Springs, she noticed the shyness of outback children. The idea of ''bridging the lonely distance' seized her mind' and suggested her 'most constructive work'. She devised, and single-mindedly set up as a branch of the F.D.S., the world's first School of the Air. It began operating from Alice Springs Higher Primary School on 20 September 1950, using individual, pedal-wireless sets on remote homesteads to link the children.'
Source: Suzanne Edgar, Helen Jones, 'Miethke, Adelaide Laetitia (1881-1962)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 10, Melbourne University Press, 1986, p.497-498.,
Subject
Women,
Northern Territory,
Related materials
Uniquely Australian : Alice Springs School of the Air. Alice Springs : Alice Springs School of the Air, 2001. NTC 371.3331 UNIQ,
Chronicle (Adelaide), 15 February 1962.,
Related links
http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100484b.htm [Australian Dictionary of Biography : Miethke, Adelaide Laetitia (1881 - 1962)],
https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1108582 [Order of the British Empire - Officer (Civil) 1937],
http://www.assoa.nt.edu.au/ [School of the Air Web site],
http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?c=1260&mode=singleImage ["World's first School of the Air Opened" Adelaide Advertiser, 9 June 1951. p.2.],