Tony Parsons (Australian author)
Anthony David Parsons OAM (known as Tony Parsons) is an Australian author and kelpie breeder. He founded the well-known Kelpie stud “Karrawarra” in 1950 and has gone on to become the breed's most passionate and hardest working advocate. Before that, he was a professional sheep and wool classer. Don Burke said that Tony Parsons has done more to developing the Kelpie as a working dog than anyone else. Kelpie breeder Jan Lowing says that "Parsons (Karrawarra) was responsible for seeking out and preserving Kelpie bloodlines after the fiasco of two World Wars, during which  many ‘studs’ disappeared". Parsons spent time in the Mudgee area 300 km north west of Sydney up to 1972, and based several of his fiction books in the region. He subsequently lived at East Greenmount, Queensland near Toowoomba where his Kelpie stud is located. Awards. In 1992, he was awarded the prestigious Medal of the Order of Australia for his “contribution to the propagation of the Australian Kelpie sheep dog”.