50 years ago, August 1976
Two of Echuca's most successful social functions are the Apex and Hopwood Balls — both staged for the purpose of crowning Rich River queens.
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The first, the Apex Ball, sees the crowning of Miss Rich River Charity Queen.
At the Hopwood Ball, one of the recognised highlights on Echuca social calendar, the Miss Rich River Festival Queen is named and crowned.
Five girls have entered and are now involved in fundraising activities.
The five girls and the organisations they represent are: Miss Netball, Laurice Niblett; Miss Young Nationals, Debbie Vincent; Miss Lockington Young Farmers, Ruth Thompson; Miss Moama, Sue Williams; Miss Rotaract, Ann Ogilvie.
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Echuca YMCA’s drop-in centre in High St has obviously met with the approval of the city’s younger set.
YMCA service director Mr Alton Baker said he was more than pleased with the acceptance of the centre.
Since the completely remodelled centre opened its doors recently, young people had been making continual use of its facilities.
Mr Baker said that since the start of the school holidays the centre had been exceptionally busy.
Facilities at the centre include a sound lounge, pool tables, table tennis, a television lounge, an area for playing chess and draughts, and trampolines.
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An internationally known waxworks has agreed to set up its display at the Port of Echuca.
The waxworks, known as Pitman's, will be set up as a feature display in the main body of Shackell’s Bond Store.
It is hoped the inclusion of the waxworks will generate more interest and money for the flagging Port of Echuca project.
News on the establishment of the waxworks came from Monday night's meeting of Echuca City Council.
Cr J. G. Quinn told council of the waxworks proposal during a report on the activities of the Port of Echuca Restoration Advisory Committee.
25 years ago, August 2001
Echuca Police Station is one of 26 around Victoria that has closed its front door to the public during the past week as part of statewide Police Association industrial action.
An Echuca police spokesperson said the door of the 24-hour station had been locked at various times, mainly in the middle of the night or when police were dealing with several jobs at the same time.
“There was always someone in the station to answer the phone or handle an emergency,” the officer said.
The spokesperson said ideally, Echuca would have at least five members on duty at any one time.
Because of a shortage of police around Victoria, numbers at Echuca had “always” been below optimum.
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Bridge protest rallies on the steps of parliament houses in Melbourne and Sydney are the next step in the fight to gain a new bridge acceptable to the community, according to federal Member for Murray Sharman Stone.
Dr Stone is urging Echuca-Moama residents to take their protest out of town to politicians if they want to achieve a satisfactory outcome from the bridge debate.
Dr Stone is also calling for VicRoads to provide a full study on the western and eastern options.
Her calls come as VicRoads prepares to release its BES/EIS documentation for public exhibition, along with its news bulletin, at the end of August or early September.
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Echuca can now add another name to its extensive list of successful water ski racers: Chelsea Blight.
The 15-year-old, who has recently moved to Echuca with her family, will be representing Australia at the World Water Ski Racing Championships, which will be held in the United States in October.
Blight will be one of two females representing Australia in the junior girls under 17 division, with a total of 12 Australian ski-racers competing at the world titles.
Selection in the Australian team for the world titles is the highest honour in Blight's extensive water ski racing career.
10 years ago, August 2016
Anger continues to boil over among Echuca businesses furious at the proposal to slug them with a levy.
The proposed levy being trumpeted by Echuca-Moama Tourism and Committee for Echuca-Moama would see Echuca businesses pay anything from $350 to $10,000 — generating a marketing fund of $640,000 a year.
EMT chief executive Tom Smith said the funds would be used to market Echuca as a key retail hub and strong tourist and events destination, as well as for projects in the industrial sector to grow business and employment opportunities.
But Echuca Building Centre owner Leo Welch said the plan was littered with problems.
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Echuca and district firefighters are hoping the Federal Government’s new laws to block a controversial CFA EBA deal will halt the union takeover in time.
On Monday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unveiled draft laws to permanently protect the rights of volunteer emergency service workers following the bitter conditions dispute between the CFA and United Firefighters Union.
The legislation to amend the Fair Work Act, which quashes parts of enterprise agreements that undermine the capacity of firefighting or emergency services to manage volunteer operations, will be introduced when parliament resumes next week.
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At the age of 13, Mathoura’s Ashley Vesty had found his calling but for most kids that age it probably isn’t what you would expect.
Typically a sport for older people, lawn bowls has become a passion for the 20-year-old and one he hopes to pursue.
His grandfather, previous club champion at Mathoura Bryan Vesty, started bringing Ashley on a Wednesday evening to social bowls, and his love of the game grew from there.
It quickly consumed his life, even giving up football at Mathoura last season despite what some people thought about the choice.
It has since been a break-out year for the young bowler, who has played consistently enough to be selected into the Victoria Country side for a test series against the South Australia Development Squad earlier this month.
The next step for Ashley is to earn a spot in the Victorian side to play in a test series against other states and hopefully go on to compete for the Alley Shield.