Australian Dictionary of Biography

Kevin Sajieh Rasheed (1919–1992), tourism operator and promoter, was born on 20 November 1919 at Orroroo, South Australia, eldest of three children of Lebanese-born Dean Rasheed, pastoralist, and his Irish-born wife Edith Ellen, née Merrett. Kevin was educated at home by a governess before attending the Carrieton Public School and the Collegiate School of St Peter, Adelaide. Dean Rasheed owned significant landholdings around Orroroo and Carrieton, but lost most of them in the late 1930s due to the effects of the Depression and drought. At the age of fifteen Kevin left school to assist his father droving sheep. He later worked in the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd (BHP) machine shops at Whyalla as a boilermaker and fitter.

Enlisting in the Royal Australian Air Force on 25 April 1942, Rasheed trained as an air gunner. In December he was commissioned and in March 1943 sent to Britain, where he flew with two Royal Air Force airborne-forces units: No. 295 Squadron (1943), and No. 570 Squadron (1943–45). He was demobilised in Australia on 3 December 1945. His brother, Ross, and sister, Ronda, also served in the air force in World War II.

On 20 July 1944 at Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, Rasheed had married Joyce Hearn, a nurse. Joyce travelled to Australia ahead of him, staying with his parents at Carrieton until his return. The couple moved to Whyalla, where Rasheed worked for BHP before purchasing a house at Panorama, Adelaide, in 1948. In 1950 he was appointed manager of Murray Valley Coaches Ltd. The company owned land and some basic accommodation at the entrance to Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges. In 1958 he took over the lease of the Wilpena Chalet. His wife and children remained in Adelaide, visiting the chalet on school holidays.

Commencing the pioneering work of bringing tourism to the Flinders Ranges and beyond, Rasheed built considerable infrastructure at Wilpena Pound, transforming the chalet from a small operation accommodating twenty people, to a large facility with room for up to one hundred guests. He never missed an opportunity to publicise the chalet. In 1972 he appeared in an episode of the television series Boney that was filmed at Wilpena Pound. When the Ford Motor Company of Australia Ltd made a series of television commercials advertising its Fairlane range in the area in the mid-1970s, Rasheed was in them. He was also the face of Ford’s print advertising campaign, claiming that ‘I take lots of people in this car, particularly at Wilpena’ (Canberra Times 1975, 4). His efforts put Wilpena Pound on the map as an international tourist destination.

Rasheed purchased a light plane, and land adjacent to Ayers Rock (Uluru) where he later built accommodation. When flying to and from Adelaide to be with his wife and children, he would often take paying passengers. He also transported Aboriginal people for medical treatment.

Rasheed sold the Wilpena Chalet to the South Australian government in 1980; the family leased it back and his son and daughter-in-law managed the Wilpena Pound Resort until 2008. Fulfilling his dream of restoring his family’s roots in the land, in 1984 the Rasheed family bought Arkaba station, a sixty-thousand–acre (24,281 ha) property adjacent to Wilpena Pound. That year Rasheed was named South Australia’s tourism personality of the year. He won a State Tourism award in 1988.

Kicked in the face by a horse at Arkaba in the mid-1980s, Rasheed suffered a fractured skull and afterwards remained in poor health, spending his retirement years at Panorama. Survived by his wife, three sons, and a daughter, he died on 5 May 1992 at the Flinders Medical Centre and was cremated following a Catholic service.