September 7 - 13, 2022
By SIMONE KERWIN
FOR more than 35 years as a physical education and health teacher at Wangaratta High School, Sandy Newman has worked to share her enduring love of sport and the outdoors. The 65-year-old is being recognised this year for the milestone, which forms part of a career that has spanned more than 40 years, taking in her first six years of teaching in New Zealand’s Palmerston North. Originally from Albury, Sandy completed her university studies in Ballarat before applying to work in New Zealand. “I was this little country girl jumping on a plane for the first time to go to my first job in a foreign country,” Sandy recalled. “My aunty, Elaine Bray, played for the Australian women’s cricket team, and organised for her friend, the captain of the New Zealand women’s cricket team, to pick me up from Wellington airport. “I stayed with her before jumping on a train to Palmerston North. “I loved it there; it was a different culture, and the perfect environment for taking kids out on school trips and camps in the outdoors.” It also expanded Sandy’s skiing interests from solely cross country to experiencing the downhill discipline, and she added this to her already considerable sporting repertoire of basketball, volleyball, softball, cricket, hockey and soccer. “I’d always loved sport, right through school; I loved the social aspect of it, the opportunity to keep fit, and the chance to play in rep teams and see different parts of the country,” she said. Her move to Wangaratta came after an interview around her mum’s kitchen table with Brian O’Flynn in 1986, which was followed by a mid-year start at the high school that year under then-principal Lyn Barr. “Lyn was an awesome principal, and I had a great mentor in Bruce Revell, who was part of the PE team at the time,” Sandy said. She immersed herself in the sporting culture of Wangaratta - particularly as a basketball player and coach with Hustlers - and of the high school, taking on the sports coordinator role which she has now held for more than 20 years.
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Promoting a healthy view of life ◆ ON THE BALL: Sandy Newman has enjoyed being a physical education and health teacher at the Wangaratta High School for the past 35 years. PHOTO: Kurt Hickling
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YOUR GARDEN
ANIMAL CARE
WINE TALK
YOUR HEALTH
GONE ONE FISHING SHING
with BELINDA
with RSPCA
with ANITA
with CHRISTOS
with ROB
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