Welcome to this week’s editorial, You can measure the richness of a community by the passion that its people hold for place. Thursday afternoon under a stunning Autumn sky the 2019 Eurobodalla Local Hero award was announced from 31 nominees. In the handbook given out each of the nominees was given a precis of their accomplishments and contributions, usually a paragraph or two and to the casual observer unfamiliar with those nominated they might draw the wrong conclusion of the extent of contribution made.
An example is the nomination of Jaylah Hancock-Cameron. Jaylah was the only youth in the nominations and her precis read: Jaylah is a 16 year old sports woman who is striving to achieve her Cross Country/Athletics goals. She has placed at local, state, national and international levels on numerous occasions. Jaylah Is looked up to by many up and coming runners and dedication to her training is to be admired.
The truth of the matter is that Jaylah is an elite athlete, the fastest Under 18 female in 1500m in Australia and the silver medallist at the Youth Olympics held in Argentina earlier this year. Jaylah has broken one Australian record after another in her ascendancy in her sport and is now justifiably looked up to by many up and coming runners in her age group around the world.
Above: 2019 Local Hero Nomineee Jaylah Hancock-Cameron
It is true that Jaylah’s training is to be admired because she is relentless and to be considered here is that Jaylah does not have an elite world class track to train on. Her training is done on our foreshore reserves, laps around the local footy field, hours on hours of training and then hours on hours of travelling to meets to race, all supported by friends and relatives. As you can see Jaylah is worthy of more than a simplified paragraph. And this is the case for the other 30 who were nominated and for the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers in this shire who weren’t. Each and every one of them contribute so much to the richness we enjoy and in truth each and every one of them are local heroes. The Beagle was nominated and we stood humbly beside thirty other nominees knowing each and everyone of them had done so much more knowing each had so much more that remained unsaid behind their precis. Until next, Lei
