MAL Peters’ work with primary industry, regional Australia and the Inverell community has been ongoing for many years through numerous organisations; some have wondered why they have never seen the pack-horse he surely must carry his workload on! 

His Medal (OAM) of the Order Of Australia as part of the Australia Day Honours List is well deserved not only because of his list of achievements that literally fill a page, but also for his devotion to regional and rural Australia.

Mal is a current member of the Ashford branch of the NSW Farmers Association and a life member. 

He was a member of the General Council (1993-2001), a member of the Wool Industry Committee (1993-2001), a member of the Executive Committee (1996-2004), chairman of the Rural Affairs Committee (1998-2001), association vice-president (1998-2001), a delegate to the NSW State Chamber of Commerce (2001-2002), delegate to the Wool Council of Australia (1994-1998) and (2000-2001), the Farmers Association delegate to the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) (1999-2001), chairman of the NSW Farmers' Industrial Association (2001-2004) and association president (2001-2005) as well as serving on numerous other committees (1993-2005).

With the NFF Mal was an Executive Committee member (1996-2001) and NFF director (2002-2004)

Mal was chairman of Farmsafe NSW (1996-2000), he is a life member of the Australian Farm Institute and was its director (2002-2004), director of Agricultural Health Australia and of NSW Rural Assistance Authority since 2002.

During 2003 and 2004 he worked with then NSW Minister for Planning, Craig Knowles, in the drafting of the Native Vegetation Act 2003 and was an adviser to government on the establishment of the Catchment Management Authorities Act, 2003 and the creation of the Natural Resources Advisory Council.

From 2004-2011 Mal was the director of Border Rivers-Gwydir Catchment Management Authority and he became a member of the National Expert Panel examining the impact of drought on farms and rural communities and an Inverell Shire councillor in 2008.

He has been chair of the Ministerial Oversight Committee for the Namoi Catchment Water Study since 2009 and chaired the Hurlstone Agricultural High School Review in the same year.

While mayor of Inverell in 2011 he was also (and remains) chair of Regional Institute Australia, chair of Regional Development Australia - Northern Inland NSW and a member on the Ministerial Advisory Council on Regional Australia. In 2012 he became chair of the Northern Basin Advisory Committee of the Murray Darling Basin Authority.

Brian Baldwin, OAM 

Brian Baldwin was been awarded the Medal (OAM) of the Order Of Australia as part of the Australia Day Honours List.

The award had its beginning for Brian at the end of September last year when he received a letter for the Governor General’s Department informing him he had been nominated for ‘an award’, which would be presented with on Australia Day or the Queen’s Birthday weekend. The letter asked him if he would accept it.

“I wrote back and said it would be great and I would be grateful to accept it. 

“In early-November, I got a letter back saying the citation would read, such and such, would I please check it over … so I sent it back and didn’t hear another word about it,” Brian said.

“I did tell my wife; and she only said to me just after New Year ‘Did you hear anything about that OAM?’ and I said ‘No, not a word.’ 

“Then on January 9 I received another letter saying the award had been made.

“It’s most certainly an honour for me, unbelievable. I never thought of anything like this happening. 

“I just go about my work and I do a lot of community work because that’s what I like to do.”

Brian’s citation reads; ‘For service to the community of Inverell through a range of organisations.’

Those ‘organisations’ began with the North East Region St Vincent de Paul Society, which Brian joined in 1956. He is the current president, has served as president for three terms (12 years) and has also been regional president, for five years.

“I must admit that I’m a northern NSW person, I’ve spent 75 out of my 76 years in northern NSW, the first 21 in Manilla and I’ve lived the last 54 out of 55 in Inverell,” Brian said. “I just love Inverell the town and the people therein … and of the organisations I’m tied up with especially St Vincent de Paul, I’m very tied up there and with Rotary.”

Brian has been a counsellor and hospital visitor for 21 years and a member of Inverell Apex (three clubs) for 19 years during which time he was vice-president for two years and district governor from 1962-1963. He was also sworn in as a Justice Of the Peace in June of 1964.

Being a member of the Australian Livestock and Property Agents Association from 1969-2001 was possibly part of his profession, but it saw him serve as president of the Inverell Stock Agents Association for 11 years.

Brian was president of Holy Trinity School and Inverell Board in 1978 and 1982-1983, and was vice-president for three years. He was a member of the Polio Plus Committee 1987-1988 and has served with Rotary since 1984, was Vocational Service director 1989-1990 and treasurer from 1992-1993, 1996-1997, 2001-2002, 2003-2004 and again in 2005-2008.

A Sacred Heart Catholic Church Parish Council member until 2010 Brian now conducts Liturgy of the Word and Communion Service at McLean Hostel and is Home Rosary team leader.

He is race caller and president of the Inverell Jockey Club from 1981-1986 and is now a Life Member of the club, but that has been a labour of love.

“Racing is my sport. My forebears have been involved in racing ... my father was a great horseman and he used to have horses, camp drafters and things like that, and they bred very good thoroughbred horses at Manilla,” Brian said.

“I just love racing and the people who are in it. They call it the sport of kings, but it’s a great leveller. I became a race caller by accident, back in 1959. I was at the Inverell show and they used to have a lot of trotting there in those days, I was on the committee ... the fellow who broadcast the trots at the show, he got drunk. The late Fred Tome, who was the chief steward, got cranky and sacked him. Then some of them said ‘what are we going to do now?’ because they would run 15 or 20 trots a day, you know.

“Wilf McGuthrick was standing around there and he said ‘this young fella, he’s an auctioneer, he likes horses so give him a go’. So they put me up there and away I went ... for quite a while in the 70s and 80s I did quite a bit of race broadcasting all over Northern NSW.”

In his usual humble manner Brian said he knew it took three people to submit the nomination for his award and while happy the three are there he said he had no idea who they were.

Ann Hodgens, OAM

ANN Hodgens has been awarded the Medal (OAM) of the Order Of Australia as part of the Australia Day Honours List for her ‘Service to the community of Inverell’.

Ann could easily be called the gatekeeper of Inverell’s family history as she was the founder, and president of the Inverell District Family History Group in 1984-1987 and 2005-2012.

Since 2003 she has been the research co-ordinator for the Family Ties Project in conjunction with the University of New England, researching the histories of the people of the Newstead/Elsmore pastoral district near Inverell in northern New South Wales.

Ann was also involved with the interpretation phase of the restoration/conservation of the Newstead homestead in partnership with the Inverell Shire Council in 2007.

She was a researcher for the 'Women of the High Lean Country' travelling exhibition in 2007 for the Inverell Section.

Ann was an invited speaker at the New England and North West Regional Royal Australian Historical Society's Annual Conference held in Armidale in 2010 and again at the society’s annual NSW State Conference held in Maitland during 2011.

Also in 2011 Ann was the co-convenor of the NSW and ACT Association of Family History Societies' State Conference held in Inverell.

Currently Ann is a member of the Newstead Advisory Board with the Inverell Shire Council; a leader/guide for the Newstead Homestead for the Historic Houses Trust of NSW and a representative for the Family Ties Project for the Inverell Cultural Group.

Author and Co-Author of local history publications including ‘The Byron Arcade’ and ‘A Fine Body of Men: Inverell Remembers the Kurrajongs 1916.’

The end of the history group almost came when fire swept through the Bryon Arcade in July, 2008.

“I was the president at the time and I had to take the responsibility for what we were going to do, because we lost almost everything,” Ann said.

“We lost about 25 years of collection. That was all burnt in the fire. The wonderful fire brigade people salvaged about 20 per cent of our files.

“On our website we have a list of the books that we lost in the fire. They were mainly family histories that we will never, ever get again. We had hundreds of family files that we will probably never get again either.”

Rebuilding was a difficult task but Ann was surrounded by enthusiasm.

“The members made the decision that they wanted to keep going, so I had to sort of co-ordinate all of that and oversee all of that. 

“We’ve been very well supported by people from all round Australia and we now have a wonderful library again that has a very good collection that’s quite well used.”

 “Luckily we had some insurance money and a lot of other family history societies supported us by sending us copies of some of their publications,” Ann said. 

“When we started we didn’t know how it would go, but we’ve been very successful and we’ve been very busy ever since. We raised a bit of money ourselves and bit-by-bit we started again. Now we’re in the building next door to Skybridge, just opposite Centrelink.”