Tom Hawkins by Tom Hawkins
Author:Tom Hawkins [Hawkins, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hardie Grant Books
Published: 2024-08-12T16:00:00+00:00
17
Missing my greatest supporter
WHENEVER THERE IS a clear night at our home just outside Geelong, Iâll take our kids outside after dinner and try to find the biggest and brightest star in the evening sky. Iâll point to it and tell them that star is their Grandma Jennie looking down at them from the heavens with a lot of love.
Mum, who died of oesophageal cancer in April 2015, did not live to see my marriage to Emma or the birth of our children. She missed out on another Geelong premiership and so many great celebrations among our family and our friends.
It is an idea I picked up from Erin Johnson, the wife of Steve Johnson, after she lost her dad a couple of years before Mum died and wanted to make sure that her children knew all about who he was and what he meant to their family. My mum was a guiding light in my life, and in this way she can continue to shine her star onto my kids. These moments with the kids are special, but it is also a good chance to keep alive Mumâs legacy.
She grew up in Barwon Heads and went to school at Geelong College before meeting Dad at a local dance while he was playing with the Cats. Mum was then working as a dental nurse and after they married and moved to Finley to begin a life together on the farm, she continued that career. She absolutely loved the Finley community and devoted so much time to helping out at the local schools, the Finley Football Club and any other organisations that required a hand or a form of leadership.
Mum was part of the fabric of the region and was determined to make things better for those living in the community. She gave a lot more than what she was ever given, such was her community spirit.
She served as a Berriguin councillor between 2004 and 2008 and was also a former president of the Deniliquin National Party branch. She was instrumental in setting up the Murray Hut CWA in Finley, where she served as the president and also the treasurer. She was also a Nuffield Scholar, an honour received from one of the nationâs leading agricultural bodies whose aim is to bring positive change to agriculture through the development of its future leaders, and was awarded a Centenary Medal from the Australian Government for her services to regional communities.
Mum was also at the forefront of driving change at Springfield, with a particular focus on the important issue of climate change. In 2013 she told the Climate Champion Series, âItâs only when we get involved that we learn more and understand the importance of what drives us for a better and more sustainable future. Whether those conditions are climate or economic, we need to be flexible enough to be able to change and adapt to them. In the past, we just made farming decisions that were based on weather rather than climate.
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