To the CGS community,

Many will know already the sad news of the passing this weekend of Mr Terry Snow AM. 

Those close to Terry will be aware that he had been unwell for some time. He bore the impact of his illness with characteristic strength and dignity. Personally, and on behalf of our entire School community, I extend deepest sympathy to his wife, Ginette, and to their family and friends, and to all who knew Terry’s extraordinary warmth, support, drive and generosity.

Terry’s history with our School is well known. He attended Canberra Grammar School from 1953 to 1961, as did his brothers, his children, and their children. He was a passionate member of the Old Boys’ Association, a member of the School Board from 1978 to 1986, and an instigator of the School’s original Foundation.

He also became Patron of the new CGS Foundation with the exceptional gift of the Snow Centre for Education in the Asian Century in 2014. That was followed in 2019 by his gift of the Snow Concert Hall. Both are amongst the greatest personal endowments to any school in Australian history, and each is a landmark that has transformed our campus and elevated the experience and the aspirations of our School.

Neither was remotely possible without Terry’s generosity and faith in our potential, and both immeasurably accelerated our capacity for so much else that we have been able to achieve in recent years. In addition, Terry’s personal backing of the Snow Concert Hall International Series has enriched the cultural life of the capital and our community. Likewise, our Indigenous Scholarship programme is thriving in no small part through the example of his support.

Terry’s generosity was never conditional. Indeed, I think we were both quietly proud that I never even asked him for it.  We spoke of what the School needed but simply could not do, and he made it possible. 

That was his way. That is also the essential premise of the Snow Foundation that has given tens of millions of dollars to medical research, to Aboriginal education and health, to university fellowships, small business grants and community organisations; always to make possible what individuals and organisations with vision and dedication could not achieve alone.

What I admired most in Terry was his generosity of spirit that enabled people. 

I have seen that reflected in the love and loyalty of people in his teams at Canberra Airport and at Willinga Park; each like members of a family nurtured to give and be the best.  Many of them have given enormous amounts of time and expertise to ensure the value and success of our projects at the School because of what they meant to Terry. 

I saw the same in Terry’s passionate encouragement – often expressed in backhand compliments, to be sure! – to the careers of architects, project managers and builders whose skill and vision he gave the means to flourish. His and their legacy is evident in the finest facilities on our campus and in buildings and homes across Canberra that are commensurate to what Terry believed should be the standard of the capital.

He gave the same opportunity to horse riders and pilots, to medical researchers and Indigenous health workers, to young entrepreneurs and artists, and more lately to musicians.  Even through his illness over the past months, it has been joyful to see his obvious delight in the opportunity that the Snow Concert Hall has given to young musicians, talented artists and the community of Canberra, more even than we ever dared to hope when it was first envisioned.

To many, Terry was larger than life, but public figures have inner lives too.  It was my privilege to glimpse that in the warmth of his kindness to me and to my family as his guests at Willinga Park after the opening of the Snow Concert Hall, and in the obvious pleasure he took whenever talking with the Year 7 students of Snow House. He never took much interest in the naming of his buildings at the School, but the House that bears his name, I suspect, meant the world to him. As he said often, the aspiration to the highest standard that he imbibed as a student in this School was the source of his enduring gratitude.

Blunt spoken, and not short of a succinct opinion on anything substandard, he was none too into the finery of wealth; but that gruff persona belied a man of deep emotion, intelligence and extraordinary imagination. 

I never knew the old airport in Canberra, but every time I pass through Canberra Airport now, I marvel at the extraordinary vision that it must have taken to will into being something so elegant and inspiring where others would have accepted the mere utilitarian; the determination not simply to make do, but to create and to give to all who experience it the beauty that comes of excellence. 

What better example could a place of education have?

Details of a memorial service will follow, and I will speak of Terry in Assembly this week.

For now, I invite all to join me in prayers of thanks and peace for Terry, and for Ginette and their family, and for all who have known their care.

Sincerely,

Justin Garrick
Head of School.