The Team

Our host, Joseph May is joined each week by 4KQ personality Laurel Edwards, gardening expert John Hawkins, Martin Bowerman, Taryn Onofaro and ex-AFL football star Richard Champion and Sofie Formica.

• Joseph May
• Laurel Edwards
• John Hawkins
• Martin Bowerman
• Richard Champion
• Taryn Onofaro
• Sofie Formica

Joseph May

For Joseph May, joining the Great South East as host is like a graduation of sorts. Joseph is moving on from a six-year apprenticeship, served largely in children’s television, to front one of Queensland’s best-loved local programs.

And he couldn’t be happier.

" It’s a great job and a great show," says Joseph, who grew up in Brisbane, but was born in Papua New Guinea. " I love being outdoors. I love being in new places and new situations and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing with Great South East."

A striking 190-odd centimetres tall (that’s 6’4" in the old scale), Joseph’s a natural in front of the camera and for a few years was a sought-after Brisbane catwalk model.

His television career began in 1998, when he worked as a production assistant for the Nine Network children’s game show, Now You See It. The following year he was snapped up by Nine’s new children’s program Y, where he spent five series – writing, producing and reporting a total of almost 500 stories!

Since then Joseph has worked as a reporter for Nine Brisbane’s Extra and produced stories for Nine’s afternoon children’s magazine program, [Hot] Source.

In his downtime, Joseph’s a keen swimmer – trawling laps of his local pool, just like he did when he was a school boy state rep in swimming and water polo.

Laurel Edwards

Laurel Edwards was always destined to be a performer. Born and bred in Brisbane Laurel started singing and performing while still at school. She was still a student at Balmoral High School when she started working part-time for the Seven Network's popular children's show Wombat as well as participating in Channel Seven Telethons.

From 1987 until 1989 Laurel co-hosted Channel Nine's O'kay for Kids with Tony Johnston. She began working for Radio 4KQ co-hosting the breakfast timeslot with Kim Mothershaw in 1992, recently celebrating her tenth anniversary at the station.

On 11 October 1997 Laurel Edwards was a part of the on-air team that saw the first GREAT SOUTH EAST episode go to air, and she has remained an integral part of the show ever since.

In 1996 Laurel married Troy Cassar-Daley, and they and their two children, Clay and Jem, live in Brisbane.

John Hawkins

John Hawkins began his career in the nursery industry 25 years ago. 

Over the years, John has developed three major nursery garden centres based in Brisbane. During this development time, John was the youngest person appointed President of the Qld Nursery Industry Association from 1978 to 1980 and was instrumental in establishing major educational courses for horticultural training in Qld.

John has also featured on a few television gardening shows, firstly with the ABC Gardening Show in the 80s and then in the gardening segments of Healthy Wealthy and Wise in the 90s. In the mid 90s, John had his own one-hour television gardening show titled "Hawkins Style" on Channel Seven. Another show to his name is the current "Click On Ten" which was John's original concept and had him presenting the gardening segments. 

John now shows off his gardening expertise on Seven's Great South East, Sundays at 5.30pm.

Martin Bowerman

Queenslander, Martin Bowerman has travelled all over the world (most of the time carrying a tent and a fishing rod).

He started work as a journalist at The Courier Mail and then a few years later took off to work in London -- and backpacked his way, with a tent of course, through Europe, Turkey and Morocco. He is an accomplished author of both fishing and camping books and brings his knowledge of these subjects to the Great South East each week. Martin lives on the Gold Coast and is married with two children, Melissa and Scott.

Richard Champion

Richard Champion's football career spanned fourteen years in total, including ten pivotal years with the Brisbane Bears/Lions before his retirement at the end of the 2000 season.

A glazier by trade, who worked as a successful salesman prior to full-time football, Champion is a multi-talented personality, always prominent in the club's off-field activities and in 1998 won a $30,000 AFL Talent Show on Channel Seven for his marvellous impersonation of Jimmy Barnes. Champion now performs in a different way, working for Channel Seven as a presenter on the very popular Great South East and Creek to Coast programs. He also co-hosts the Sportsbet Breakfast Show each morning on Radio TAB and gives his expert tips for the Courier Mail every Friday for each round of the AFL season. His media commitments don't end there. He is also a regular on Radio 4BC's weekend sports programme "The Score" and keeps the Victorian public up to date on Triple M whenever the Lions play at the Gabba. A regular on the speaking circuit, Champion also tries to manage a kick in the local competition with the Mayne Tigers and is constantly working on his golf handicap at any given opportunity.

He was awarded Brisbane Lions Life Membership at the end of the 2000 season for his 10 years of loyal service to the club as he, wife Anne-Marie and daughters Georgia and Grace prepared for life after football.

Taryn Onofaro

From the moment she could walk, Taryn was dancing. With a mother and a grandmother who were professional dancers, there was no question that Taryn would follow in their footsteps. Taryn is trained in jazz, tap, acrobatics, ballet and neo-classical dancing.

In her late teens, Taryn decided to pursue her interest in media, enrolling in a broadcasting course at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA).

During this time, Taryn started working as an radio announcer at 6EBAFM, co-presenting and producing the breakfast program. She also appeared in television commercials, did voice-over work, and was one of the faces of community television station, Access 31 in Perth.

After graduating from WAAPA in November 2000, Taryn presented, produced and edited a series called Showcase WA for community television. Following this, her broad range of skills secured her a job in Brisbane’s "Y" studio as a researcher. Taryn also worked as a reporter on Channel Nine Brisbane’s travel series Queensland Escapes.

Taryn loves the great outdoors. She’s travelled around America, parts of Asia and most recently Europe, citing skiing the Austrian Alps as the undisputed highlight of her travels to date.

When she’s not working, Taryn enjoys dining out with her friends and dancing.

Sofie Formica

Sofie Formica began her television career at the age of 14 and hasn’t looked back since.  Her resume boasts appearances on Wombat, Saturday Disney, Now You See It (as Australia’s first female gameshow host!), Just Kidding, Home and Away, and she was an original member of The Great Outdoors. 

In 1995 Sophie moved to Los Angeles and was a reporter on Extra, a national entertainment magazine show.  During this time Sofie interviewed many Hollywood celebrities including Bruce Willis, Meg Ryan, Nicole Kidman and the cast of Friends.

With her profile rising, Sofie was hand-picked by Oprah Winfrey in 1999 and appeared with Oprah in a 13 part series "OPRAH GOES ONLINE" for her Oxygen network.

Since that time, Sofie has taken a hiatus, returning to Australia with husband, Scott, to raise their twins, Jack and Jessica and daughter Emily.

But it seems after 18 years in the industry you can take the girl out of the television, but can’t take the television out of the girl…

Sophie returns to the screen with the Great South East gang, and couldn’t be happier!