State Member for Bass

Last week I was invited to visit with Ken Smith, the State Member for Bass, representing my home town, Wonthaggi. I was born in the local hospital, educated at the local primary school and the local secondary college and left to get a university education. My parents, brother and his family, aunt and uncle and various cousins continue to live in Wonthaggi.

I drove down from Melbourne and had a good trip, listening to the radio and driving with the windows down - blowing away the city smoke with the fresh country air. I always enjoy the final section of the drive, cresting the hills just before Kilcunda and seeing the coast line laid out in front of me, leading me home. I met Ken in his offices and we talked about my event Alice 2 Antarctica - why I was doing it, what would it be like to run a marathon in Antarctica, how did I train for it? Ken seemed very interested in the event and he was happy to support me being a former Wonthaggi girl with family and friends still living in the town. We talked some more and then took some photos it was at this point that Ken gave me a generous donation to contribute to my event costs and also to go towards fundraising to support research into Indigenous Cardiovascular disease.

He further suggested a few fundraising opportunities and talked about possible media involvement. With regard to media the local newspaper - the Sentinel Times was invited to our meeting and took notes. We talked about an article being published in the following weeks paper. So it was with great delight that on Tuesday I discovered a newspaper article had indeed been written, the big surprise was the HUGE photo on the FRONT page of the news paper!!! You can read the article in its entirety here.