David J. R. Sommerlad achieved legendary status as an editor, writer, administrator and educator in the Australian Regional newspaper industry. He was a proactive advocate for regional newspapers and their communities and followed the example set by his father, the Honourable E.C. Sommerlad MLC MBE, who relentlessly championed the needs of communities through editorial leadership.
David spent the early years of his journalistic career with daily newspapers in Newcastle (Australia), Sydney and Bradford (Yorkshire), returning to work as a reporter on The Inverell Times in 1952.
He progressed from managing editor at the Inverell Times and the Glen Innes Examiner to become managing director and editor-in-chief of New England printing and publishing companies, eventually to merge as the Nornews Limited group based at Armidale.
After 30 years in the country, David moved to Sydney as executive editor of Rural Press Limited publications for six years before transferring to head the Country Press Australia and New South Wales industry organisations.
He was a life member of Country Press NSW and Country Press Australia. Newspapers he edited were frequent winners of journalism awards, including all the major awards presented by Country Press NSW and Country Press Australia.
David spent a period in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive (1968) where he reported on the war for the Australian provincial press. His name appears on the Nominal Roll of Vietnam Veterans, Civilians, and War Correspondents.
With the assistance of Lloyd Jenkins OAM and academic staff at Deakin University, he created a unique training program for community cadet journalists.
He was a long serving member of the Australian Press Council.
For many years he was a respected columnist, called “Sommerlad Says” and commentator.
David also had a significant involvement in all the communities in which he worked. He was one of the founders of the Inverell Pioneer Village in the late 1950s and continued to serve on its executive long after he left Inverell. The historical village was developed into a major tourist attraction in Inverell.
He was the champion of Castle Hill’s Heritage project, which recognises the site of one of Australia’s first Government Farms (established in 1801), always using the newspaper to propagate and promote causes.
He was a Rotarian for more than 60 years, a Paul Harris Fellow and a past president. He has been a member of the Rotary Club of Glen Innes, the Rotary Club of Inverell, the Rotary Club of Armidale and the Rotary Club of Castle Hill. He was one of the founding fathers of Rotary International’s FAIM program (The Fourth Avenue in Motion) that began in Inverell under the initiation of Past District Governor Keith Hopper.
In 1995 David was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to the print media, particularly through the country press organisations of Australia and New South Wales, and to the community.
Internationally David Sommerlad attended his first ISWNE (International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors) conference in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2001. His affiliation with ISWNE began some 40 years earlier after fellow Aussie editor, W.B. “Curly” Annabel, struck up a life-long friendship with ISWNE cofounder Houstoun Waring. Annabel, editor-publisher of the semi-weekly Bega District News of Bega, had seen the 1951 U.S. State Department and U.S. Information Agency film, “Small Town Editor”which featured Waring. Annabel began a correspondence with Waring in 1954 and visited the editor’s family in Littleton the following summer.
When President Eisenhower urged sister-city relationships, Annabel and Waring decided in 1960 to form a bond between the two cities. Annabel also became an associate editor of Grassroots Editor, a position he would hold for 10 years. He introduced Sommerlad to ISWNE, and Sommerlad even served as an associate editor himself for four years in the early 1970s.
In 2016 David was presented with the Annual Eugene Cervi Award, the most prodigious ISWNE Award for outstanding public service through community journalism and adhering to the highest standard of the craft.
