Rigby, John Francis   (1927 - 2021)

Born in Queensland in 1927, died in Queensland in 2021 aged 94.

Went to Brisbane State High School.

Studied at Queensland University of Technology.

John Rigby worked at the School of Earth, Environmental and Biological Sciences, Queensland University of Technology. John did research in Paleontology. Many projects concerned 'Gondwana or Gondwanaland'.

He also worked at Birbal Sahani Institute of Paleobotany in India.

John Rigby was not only a QUT academic paleobotanist, runner, and world champion bodybuilder, but he was also a great supporter of the 'QUT Classic' running race. He participated every year from 2013 - 2019 until he passed away in 2021 at the age of 94. To honour his legacy, the QUT Classic awards the John Rigby Medal to the oldest competitor in the event.

In his own words (2019):

"I'm a palaeobotanist, documenting evolutionary trends. When I finished my undergraduate degree, I realised there were two subjects I'd majored in. One of them was botany and one was geology and palaeobotany was the only thing that could use both of them, so I said, "I'm going to be a palaeobotanist." That's what I've been ever since. And that was in the '50s.

"I'm working in a period of over 150 million years. I've worked in plants of this age in all continents, which includes Antarctica. That's sort of been my niche in life.

"Normally I'll come here four times a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Wednesday I'll just do running. I do fun runs sometimes as well.

I stopped doing full marathons oh, probably about 10 years ago. Since then, I've only been doing half marathons or shorter. One of the few things I did this year, because of my health problem, was I took part in the Queen's Baton Relay with the Commonwealth Games. "The type of body building I do is not lifting heavy weights but it depends on posing and on my appearance as a model so I don't get to wear a G-string.

I started competing in 2012. In 2013 I entered the Australian national titles, in the 80+ division, at that stage. The nearest other competitor to myself was more than 10 years younger than me. I've done a number of other Australian competitions and I've also done a few international competitions and, again, I've been the only one in my age division. I'm the World Natural Bodybuilding champion in my age group.

"Now, there have been a few centenarians in palaeobotany so I've got something to compete for. And as far as body building is concerned, I don't think there have been any centenarians or even 90-year-olds or, for that matter, 80-year-olds. After all, I only have to keep going for another eight years till I hit the century mark, so why stop?

"I'm looking forward to being able to go on for quite a number of years yet.
I've got enough fossil material without collecting any more to last me for 15 to 20 years. Because I find that when I go to a locality, collect specimens, in a week I get enough material to work for about two years. So I just keep on accumulating more and more stuff that I have to get round to someday.

"Someday I'm going to die and when I do I'm going to leave a lot of specimens that someone else has to work on. My future goal in science is to keep making discoveries and making some magnificent discovery that'll make me famous.

(Extracted from: 'Powering on: Looking forward, never back - John Rigby's story'. 2019).

Source: Extracted from:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Rigby
https://www.facebook.com/john.f.rigby.5/
https://www.facebook.com/qutsport/posts/john-rigby-was-not-only-a-qut-academic-visitor-paleobotanist-runner-and-world-ch/701904045103123/
https://www.dcssds.qld.gov.au › __data › assets › word_doc › 0008 › 5102 › powering-on.docx
Portrait Photo: 2013, https://www.facebook.com/john.f.rigby.5/