2015
Swimming show colours
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
Sunny skies certainly made for a great day at Kyabram P-12 College’s swimming sports last Friday.
And the action was not only in the water.
Students brightened up Kyabram Swimming Pool in some creative and crazy costumes to show their support for their house colours and peers.
Sports co-ordinator Trudee Leahy said it was wonderful to see a sea of students wearing blue, green and red enter the gates excited to participate and cheer on their teammates.
Ms Leahy said she hoped all students who won their event as well as age champions would compete at the zone event in Echuca on March 2.
***
Street artwork ticks all boxes
Local birds captured in flight. Tick
Water feature that won’t froth up if, heaven forbid, detergent was to be added. Tick.
Kyabram’s Streetscape Committee triumvirate — Kevin Andrews, Brian Hilton and Lisa Ratcliffe — are satisfied Tongala artist Murray Ross has ticked every box for the feature artwork they envisaged more than three years ago for Kyabram’s main roundabout.
And what’s more, they believe the unique artwork will be a differing last piece of the street scape project puzzle, which has spanned 16 years and for which they have volunteers hundreds of hours.
Mr Andrews said Kyabram desperately needed a feature in the roundabout that people would talk about.
***
Community digging in for P-12 fight
In a building full of teachers, parents, politicians and councillors, one lone Year 7 student stands up and tells those assembled: “If this building goes, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
The Kyabram community turned out in force last Wednesday to send a clear message to the Victorian Department of Education: our children are just as important as those in the city.
More than 150 people attended a special community meeting at Kyabram P-12 College to protest the Victorian Government’s decision to relocate the school’s portable Year 9 community building to a school in Melbourne’s south-east.
The college received word last month that the department had reversed a decision the previous Liberal/National government made to allow it to keep the building and told principal Stuart Bott they would have less than a month to vacate.
“I think we should fight for this building,” Campaspe Shire councillor Carol Howell said.
***
2005
Four generations a great Gemmill gift
Beryl Gemmill has the rare distinction of being the matriarch of a family spanning four generations.
Mrs Gemmill, who celebrated her 80th birthday recently, has eight children, five sons-in-law, one daughter-in-law, 25 grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and another on the way.
Mrs Gemmill has lived in Kyabram all her life.
***
Community Church in search for new home
The Kyabram Community Church has begun its search for a new home and is in negotiations for the purchase of a building in the industrial zone of Kyabram.
Reverend John Hosking said the current church site, at the former Mechanics Institute, was becoming untenable.
“We squeeze 150 to 170 people into that space,” he said.
With a growing congregation, the church is looking to purchase a building that can adequately cope with the numbers the church attracts.
However, with plans only at an early stage, any move would not be for some time.
***
Pen pals reunite
After meeting each other for the first time six years ago, pen friends from different parts of the world reunited in Undera last week.
Undera dairy farmers David and Margie Gordon first got to know Jake and Elise Buol of the United States state of Wisconsin through a notice in an Australia dairy magazine.
The notice was chasing pen pals from Australia to be matched with fellow dairy farmers in America.
Mrs Buol requested to be matched up with an unmatched Australian and the rest was history.
The Gordons were able to fit in trips to the Kyabram Fauna Park, Echuca, a cattle sale in Shepparton and Apollo Bay with the Buols.
***
1995
For 40 years Herb’s enjoyed the fruits of work
Just over 40 years ago, Herb Prior had had enough of taxi driving.
He had conducted the business from the Goulburn Valley Café for three and a half years, ploughing most of his life savings into buying a Holden car to use in the business.
But the night work of running a taxi business didn’t appeal to a youthful Herb, and one day while sitting in his taxi he got an idea.
Next to the GV Café Fred Reddie ran a fruit shop. In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Herb asked Fred whether he would like to sell the business to him. Fred obliged.
That was 40 years ago on Tuesday — and he is still there.
***
Ex-local is hero in bull drama
A former Girgarre man has been hailed as the hero in the drama of a bull attack near Cobram.
Daryl Smith answered the call of his part-time boss, who was being pounded by the bull.
Daryl was able to distract the bull long enough to allow his boss, John Paterson, to get clear.
John said Daryl’s quick-thinking saved his life.
“I thought I was going to die and yelled out to Daryl,” he said.
“He got over the fence with the bull, but further away, and got the bull’s attention away from me for long enough for me to get away.”
***
Nathan hits a high note
Kyabram’s Nathan Tranter has been invited to join the prestigious Victorian State Children’s Choir.
The choir is based in Melbourne and has performed internationally, with tours of Great Britain, the United States and New Zealand in the past few years.
Nathan, who is in Year 5, has been tutored by Dick McGowan as part of the Dawes Rd Primary School music program, which has been highly successful during the past three years.
***
Cadet Journalist