Boxing Day birthday
Kyabram’s Jonty Sefton celebrated his 11th birthday on Boxing Day cheering on the Aussies in the third cricket Test between Australia and England at the MCG.
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Jonty was pretty happy with how his, and the Aussies’, day went.
First laugh of 2022
Traps reader contacted us leading up to 2022 with what seemed a good idea.
He said that if you took the trouble to raise your left leg on New Year’s Eve just before midnight you would enter the new year on the right foot!
Good one, Baz.
Dry note to end year
Last year ended on a dry and hot note for Kyabramites, with no rain recorded after December 20.
The 5.2mm recorded that Monday took the December total to 19.8mm, which was below the monthly average of 33.2mm.
But Kyabram’s total for rainfall for 2021 of 456.4mm was slightly above the yearly average of 444.6mm in the period from 1964 to now.
Temperatures soared late last week, with the mercury peaking at 35.2°C on Thursday, 37.1°C on Friday and 38.1°C Saturday. It was slightly cooler at 36.6°C on Sunday.
Statewide exposure
Our region got some nice exposure in the I Love Victoria pictorial section of the Herald Sun’s Your View daily page in the week leading up to Christmas.
The Nicholson family’s much lauded perennial Christmas display at its Mt Scobie property and a peaceful shot of the Waranga Basin were both featured.
Goodbye to stalwarts
Kyabram lost several town and district stalwarts in the lead up to, and during, the festival season.
Long-time Kyabram businessman William Frank Tobias left us on December at the grand old age of 94.
Frank conducted the auto repair business Tobias Motors in Allan St for many years and had a passion for restoring old vehicles.
Prior to Christmas Kyabram farewelled Albert Walsh, 88, another former Kyabram businessman who had stints in the printing division at the Free Press after moving to the town from Nathalia in 1948.
He started the present business Ky Auto Parts in the mid 1990s with his son Greg, who took over the business in 2007.
Albert was an active member of the Rotary Club of Kyabram for many years and was popular with his friendly and helpful disposition.
Myrl Mawson also left a big gap in the town, with her passing on December 27.
Myrl was a great organiser, who made friends readily with her friendly manner, and will be sadly missed.
Marie Wearden and Dorothy Hindson were other long-time district residents who left us over the past month. Both were nonagenarians (in their 90s).
Dorothy Hindson was the wife of legendary Kyabram schoolteacher Keith.
The Blind Comedian
Blind comedian drew some belly laughs when he told his audience the two most asked questions of him were ‘‘when did you lose you sight?’’ and ‘‘what do you think you’re doing in my garden?’’
Drug driver tests
Motorists driving with drugs in their system have had their chances of being caught enhanced, with Shepparton detectives given the power to do tests.
Some 15 detectives will join Shepparton highway patrol officers to conduct the tests.
Drinking program for Shepp
Shepparton has been selected as one of four sites in Victoria in a program to support people found drunk in public places.
The new state government initiative will promote therapeutic and culturally safe pathways to inform how a new public health model will eventually be rolled out across the State.
The announcement comes four years after Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day of Echuca died in police custody after being arrested for public drunkenness.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said a drunk person should be looked after and not locked up and claimed the new model would save lives.
Lockington couple jailed
An elderly Lockington couple have been jailed for fraudulent Workcover payments and money stolen from an employer.
James Scott, 78, and Yvonne Scott, 71, pleaded guilty in the Country Court prior to Christmas to four charges of theft and one charge of obtaining financial advantage totalling more than $800,000.
The couple separated in 2007, but continued to live together and run their small business, Lockington Hooves and Paws, from their rural property.
Mrs Scott worked as office manager in Portsea and Toorak branches of real estate businesses up to 2012 before moving to Lockington.
She continued to run the businesses again from 2015 to 2018 when she stole $777,307 from transactions, which she placed in the couple’s bank account.
The couple was ordered to compensate the money they stole and Yvonne Scott was sentenced to three years’ jail with an 18-month non-parole period. James Scott was sentenced to two years and four months’ imprisonment and will be eligible for parole in 14 months.
Olive oil award
Cobram-based olive oil producer Cockatoo Grove has claimed a national award.
The family business run by Ken and Joan Duggan and their son Tim was awarded the highest score of 25 Australian and international oils sampled by the consumer group Choice magazine and was the only one to be awarded gold standard status.
Choice made the award in its December 2021 olive oil review, awarding the gold medal to Cockatoo Grove with a group high score of 86 per cent.
Another bank gone
The Southern Riverina has lost another bank.
The Bendigo Bank agency at Tocumwal closed for business at the end of December.
The closure comes on top of nearby Finley losing its Bendigo Bank branch in 2019 and also its Commonwealth Bank in April last year.
RSPCA cat warning
Several recent incidents where cats have met a grisly death in illegal leg-hold traps have prompted a warning from RSPCA Victoria.
Traps of this type are illegal and are not be used regardless of what type of animal people are aiming to capture.
Anyone found guilty of selling or using them is liable for a maximum penalty of $43,000 or up to two years’ jail.
If anyone has suspicions somebody is selling or using these traps they are urged to phone 9224 2222.
Upgrade for club
Wakool Bowling Club has had its facilities updated through Federal Government funding under the Drought Communities Program Extension project.
Murray River Council was awarded $350,000 to make the improvements, which were officially opened by Federal Member for Farrer Sussan Ley.
The Wakool Bowling Club, a social hub for the town, has been a popular destination for many Kyabram and district bowlers over the years.
Katunga South closure
A country school with 141 years of history has closed its doors — for ever.
Katunga South Primary School was opened in 1880 after residents lobbied for a school in the Katunga Parish.
Originally named North Katunga Primary School it had to moved seven years after it opened to make way for the construction of a rail link between Numurkah and Cobram.
The present school was completed in 1907 and by the 1950s boasted 66 students.
Dobson MDA chair
City of Greater Shepparton councillor Geoff Dobson has been elected chair of the influential regional committee of the Murray Darling Association.
It’s the peak body for local government in the Murray-Darling Basin and covers councils across the Murray and Riverina regions.
New trespassing law
Trespassing on farms could prove costly from now on for animal activists.
Under the Livestock Management Amendment (Animal Activism) Bill farm trespassers will face on-the-spot fines of $1272 for an individual or $8178 for an organisation.
Additional penalties of up to $10,904 for an individual and up to $54,522 for an organisation could apply for more serious offending.
Square Dinkum
G’day
A champion golfer, who played off scratch, hit his ball 300 metres straight down the middle of the fairway — where it hit a sprinkler head and careered off into the scrub. All the way down the fairway he cursed his luck, found his ball surrounded by trees, and cursed his luck again. He took out his pitching wedge and hit the ball as hard as he could. It bounced off a tree trunk and came straight back at him, and struck him stone dead.
He arrived at the pearly gates and Saint Peter looked up his record and saw that he was a scratch golfer.
Saint Peter asked, ‘’Are you any good?’’
‘‘Am I any good?’’ said the golfer. ‘’I got here in two, didn’t I?’’
Hooroo!