Columba Catholic College is a private, co-educational, Catholic, day and boarding school located in Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia. It is a school of the Diocese of Townsville. Established in 1998, the school currently caters for approximately 610 students from pre-school to year 12, including 200 boarders from year 4 to 12. The college draws students from Charters Towers and surrounding areas. Boarders come from the Northern Territory and Northern Western Australia, plus coastal and Gulf Regions of Queensland. The current principal of Columba Catholic College is Mr Michael Ashton, who began in 2008 after Tim Dark resigned to go back to university to study medicine. Althea Norton was the original founding principal of Columba who retired after 10 years of service Columba Catholic College was established in 1998 through the amalgamation of three local Catholic schools, St Columba’s Primary School (established in 1876), St Mary’s College (established in 1882) and Mount Carmel College (established in 1902). In 2004, plans were made to merge the 3 schools into 2. The reasoning behind this was that there were problems getting information quickly between the three locations.