Zoran Panzich: Long-time Manjimup journalist signs off

West Australian

20-05-2025

ZORAN STEPHEN PANZICH
Born: November 16, 1953 Sarajevo, Croatia
Died: May 13, 2025, Manjimup, Australia
There are no streets named after Zoran Panzich, he wasn't nominated for an Order of Australia, and his name is not in gold letters on a board at the council or any sports club.
His family wasn't exactly welcomed to the district as European migrants in 1958, his school years were peppered with disdain, and later, as the local journalist, he could cop the worst.
Yet Zoran loved the Lower South West.
So much so, that the house that his parents built five years after arriving in Australia, remained his home right up to his death last week on May 13 aged 71.
When Zoran joined the then Warren Blackwood Times in 1984 as the senior journalist — and for a long while the only journalist — he alone had the choice in how he would write about the place that had treated him with less than fair respect.
And for 21 years he chose to champion it.
Then, in retirement he took to emails and the internet to set right those in power who he thought did not have the best intent for the region.
But the rage in his writing to government ministers over issues such as the closing of the timber industry, was never hinted in the way he approached life.
Zoran was habitually enthusiastic. He openly subscribed to the idea that the way of the world was largely 'nuts' and that people who worked only for money had missed the point.
He obsessed over doing a good job at the Warren Blackwood Times (later the Manjimup-Bridgetown Times) and so rarely had a day off, and regularly worked 60-plus hour weeks.
Yet visit the office, whatever the time, and it was in a state of chaos, as he always had more stories he still wanted to write, fuelled by a fridge stocked with soft drinks and chocolate bars.
The kid who had arrived as a four-year-old from Sarajevo, and learnt English with his Dad at classes for migrants at the Jardee Mill Hall, loved being the local newspaper reporter.
It was his Dad, a dock saw operator, who encouraged Zoran to understand the 'language' and get an education, with the alternative there would always be a spot at the mill.
Zoran chose the education, but in his early years, the schools of the time often didn't have the skills, patience or interest in southern European migrant kids.
He would recount numerous times how he and the other 'Slav, Italian and Masso' kids were left out, but he wasn't bitter, rather he would say 'imagine this place now without us'.
As it was, he left Manjimup not long after finishing high school, and eventually worked as a journalist in the Wheatbelt, writing for various local papers and as a contributor for the Sunday Times.
When the job opened at the Warren Blackwood Times in July 1984 it was only supposed to be temporary, but he stayed until his retirement in 2005.
Along the way, head office finally decided to send him some help, and he threw himself into mentoring the junior reporters.
Zoran readily accepted, as with all people in public jobs, he would be criticised at times, but he also didn't always make it easy on himself.
For a few seasons, he took on the unenviable job umpiring the local football league.
On retiring from the paper, he bought the then Overlander Motel just before the Manjimup gateway, but didn't stay in that long. It was said he liked his customers too much to always charge them correctly.
Even a few years later when he contracted cancer and as he sat in his bed at Fiona Stanley Hospital awaiting the start of treatment, it seemed as if his unending optimism would still not allow him the words to be negative.
In his life Zoran Panzich loved and fought for a place that gave him plenty of reasons not to, and those who knew him will long miss his laughter and enthusiasm.