Mid-North Coast: Three Australia Day award recipients recognised
They’ve dedicated their lives to making the Mid-North Coast community a better place to live, work and play – now they’ve been recognised for their hard work in doing so.
Mid-North Coast
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Three distinguished members of the Mid-North Coast community have today been recognised for their outstanding services to the community in the Australia Day Awards honours list.
The Governor-General announced the Australia Day 2021 list of honours, that this year pays homage to the more than 845 Australians across the country for their outstanding contributions to society.
The awards are categorised into three divisions, with the bulk of the honours – The Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) – presented to more than 371 people.
Three people from the Hastings and Kempsey Macleay were bestowed the honour of receiving an OAM for demonstrating outstanding service or exceptional achievement.
They are OAM Norma Catherine Cowper of Port Macquarie for service to the community through a range of roles, OAM Jeannette Maud Rainbow Wauchope for service to the community of Wauchope, and OAM Maurice Smith Kempsey for service to the community and to motorsport.
The late Mr Smith was recognised posthumously.
“I was very thrilled and honoured and humbled,” Ms Rainbow said, when she was contacted by the Governor-general of the Commonwealth of Australia, David Hurley.
“I always think that an award for one, is an award for a lot of people, because around everyone there is great people and in all the years I’ve been involved in community work I’ve been fortunate enough to have some wonderful people around me and I think the accolade goes to all really.
“I was rather shocked at first, I really hadn’t gone in to researching what the award entails, but undoubtedly it takes somebody a lot of time to put an award together.
“I think these awards are so lovely because a lot of people have worked for years for certain organisations and they do it because they love to do it.”
Ms Rainbow has been a member of the Wauchope community for more than 30 years, holding distinguished board, administrative and committee roles across a broad spectrum of disciplines and groups over that time.
One of her greatest successes she says has been her commitment to delivering scripture classes to students at Wauchope and Beechwood primary schools – a role she still does to this day.
“I’ve taught scripture at Wauchope Public School for 25 years and at Beechwood school for about 10 years and that’s a job I’m still involved in.
Port Macquarie resident, OAM Norma Catherine Cowper, said she was equally taken back by the announcement when it came through.
“I thought why me? I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary,” she said.
“But then when it was explained to me, I got bogged down with feelings and you know I thought can’t believe this, I thought the award I’d been granted was only given to people who had saved lives or something like that.
“I said I hadn’t done anything like that, until it was explained to me that it was just for services rendered more or less. It was very overwhelming.”
Ms Cowper’s roles vary between her days living in Sydney as a resident of the Hastings.
She has made various contributions serving as a member of the Ex-Services, the Hastings Valley Torchbearers, Lake Cathie Bowling Club, the Angels Group, Port Macquarie Uniting Church, Port Macquarie Probus Club and the Hastings Valley Koala Hospital.
She said one recognition that stands out is her time at Twentieth Century Fox, when she was a member of the Cineclub Charity from 165-1980.
“I think the first thing that comes to my mind, before I was married, I belonged to what they called the “Cineclub” which was a charity and they used to ask us to do all this knitting for [Sydney’s) Crown Street Women’s Hospital for babies who were born out of wedlock and the mother’s had no support for them,” she said.
“Up here in Port Macquarie, I think the most self satisfying memory is combining our local band with Sing Australia and other organisations to do concerts over Armistice Day over the last five years.
“Of course, there is a long gap between those two things, but they are the two that stick in my mind as being something that is worthwhile.”
The late Maurice Smith was recognised for his contributions to the community through motorsport, the Men’s Shed movement and serving on a number of boards for bowling and golf clubs around Kempsey, the Camden Haven and earlier on in his life with various groups as a Victorian.
The Governor-general David Hurley paid tribute to these three locals, and all others honoured in today’s Australia Day Honours list.
“I am determined to make sure that the Order of Australia reflects the diversity and breadth of our community,” he said.
“The Order of Australia belongs to all Australians – my strong message to the community is that if you know someone that is worthy, take the time to nominate them. People cannot be recognised if they’re not nominated and that has to be driven from the community.
“It is a wonderful way to recognise and celebrate achievement, service and contribution to community.”
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