Fifty years is a long time in any profession but Strathalbyn wool classer Graham Jenke still loves working in the sheds.
Earlier this year he received a special 50-year stencil from Australian Wool Exchange and the first time he proudly inked it onto wool bales was the Wirreanda clip which he classed for his brother-in-law Richard Hentschke at Tungkillo.
Coincidentially it was also the first clip he ever classed in 1971 for his father-in-law, Bob Hentschke.
"It was a two stand shed and they were huge Bungaree blood Merinos and a lot broader than nowadays," he said.
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Adding to the special associaton with the shed in October 2020 and April 2021, the Wirreanda clip, which is now a six month shearing, was nominated for Elders SA Clip of the Month under Graham's classing.
Raised on a farm at Mount Torrens in the Adelaide Hills, Graham says his father encouraged him to have a back up to farming which proved to be sound advice.
"My brother and I both wanted to be farmers but Dad said we needed to get a trade first, I chose woolclassing and my brother did mechanics," he said.
"It helped a lot getting through the 1980s and 1990s, it kept us from losing the farm when interest rates went to more than 20 per cent and sheep were worth nothing."
After attending wool classing classes for a year at the School of Mines located at the Adelaide Showgrounds, Graham spent three years in sheds across SA, venturing as far as western NSW while roustabouting and learning wool classing.
"The big thing when we were 16 to 17 year olds was the chance to travel, you would leave home and come back six or eight weeks later and have a good look around," he said.
At that time, following these three years experience, wool classers were issued a three-year provisional certificate before gaining their full ticket.
In 1974 Graham and his wife Di moved to the South East, buying a property at Lucindale.
Graham continued to work off-farm wool classing, often for seven to eight months of the year in the 1980s and 1990s.
One really memorable property Graham classed annually was the seven-stand Redbank at Lucindale that was owned by the Copping family.
Shearing time was always just before Christmas and he remembers keeping some of the finest fleeces aside to make a premium line.
"Redbank topped the Adelaide market for the year when their wool was sold and nearly did it again the next year, with a 17 micron line."
Graham says classing has become much simpler than the early days when the standards called for up to 12 fleece lines from AAAM to BCOM and up to three lines of pieces.
Graham's classing experience has also come in particularly useful in his other passion, breeding Corriedale sheep.
"In recent years the Merino breeders have gone down the path of breeding sheep with soft rolling skin, long staple and defined crimp in the fleeces, I have been breeding that in my Corriedales for many years" he said.
"Those fleeces with strong crimp definition, no matter what micron, tend to test finer than they look, you can tell by the feel of the wool in your hands."
Nine years ago the Jenkes sold their Lucindale farm and downsized to a smaller property near Strathalbyn.
They have continued to run 120 stud ewes in their Wattle Glen Corriedale stud and still enjoy exhibiting at many shows.
Graham says he has no plans to give classing away any time soon especially with the shortage of young ones to replace him.
"There are a group of us that work together classing and roustabouting, just the other week I was one of three roustabouts and I was the youngest in the team at nearly 71 years," he said.
"Some days it can get really busy but it keeps me fit, if I haven't done it for a while I really feel it - you have to move it or you lose it."
