By Mikayla van Loon
Lilydale High School has inducted six more notable people into its Gallery of Achievement, with an awards ceremony on Wednesday 24 August.
The Gallery of Achievement was first launched in 2019 at the school’s centenary celebrations as a way of honouring and recognising past students who had made significant contributions to their community, whether through their career, volunteering, sporting achievements or in the arts.
Principal Wendy Powson said it was important to share the school’s history with the present and future generations of students.
“We wanted to be able to acknowledge those Lilydale High School students who have gone on to serve their community or excelled in their area of expertise,” she said.
“They are an important part of the rich history of our school and although education and schools have gone through many changes, especially in the last two and a half years, we believe it’s important to remember and acknowledge the past to enable us to build a positive future for our current students.”
Ms Powson also said the Gallery of Achievement proved to students that there was not just one path to take to be successful after leaving school.
“There are some pretty amazing things that you can go out there and do and just the breadth of what people have got involved in after they leave Lilydale High School has been fabulous to see and to hear today,” she said.
The inductees included Peter Harmsworth AO, Jim Johnson, Adam Mattinson, Robyn Nethercote, Dan Nixon and Rosemary Varty OAM.
These newest inductees join people like the late Archie Roach, Harry Garside, Professor Mark Cook, Miriam Knee and Erin McIntyre.
Ms Powson took a moment at the beginning of the awards ceremony to honour Archie Roach and said “he was a past Lilydale High school student and a great Australian so we were very sad to hear about Archie.”
The variations in career paths and roles were spread across each area of society, with the inductees noted for everything from public service to on screen appearances, sporting legacies and cartography.
Mr Harmsworth studied at Lilydale High School from 1959 to 1962 before completing his final two years of schooling at the Victorian Police Cadets. He was a member of Victoria Police from 1963 to 1973 where he helped establish the design of an operational computer system.
Later he went on to complete a course in computer programming, where he ended up using his skills in the Department of Transport’s automatic data processing branch.
In 1992 Mr Harmsworth was elected as the deputy secretary and eventually director of the newly formed Department of Education.
Over a 44 year career in public service, Mr Harmsworth moved across many departments within the government, held senior advisor roles and went on to consult after his retirement in 2007.
“You look around the group here today and the breadth and contribution of people is just fabulous. So it is good to come back to my alma mater and get recognition from a school, that at that stage, for me, was just fabulous,” he said.
“We had a great headmaster and we had a great teaching staff and it was just a brilliant time. So it was good grounding.”
Mr Johnson played nearly every sport possible in the area, from cricket at Mooroolbark, Ringwood and South Belgrave, football at Mount Evelyn, Ringwood, South Belgrave and Croydon, as well as baseball at Ringwood.
He was even the inventor of the commonly used AFL ‘stab punt’ kicking technique.
“In the last few months I was here, from about July, we moved from out in the sticks at Montrose with tank water and not very much else to the bottom storey of a double storey house in Brighton and I travelled to Lilydale to go to school. From Brighton to the city to Lilydale and back again,” Mr Johnson said.
Rosemary Varty also attended Lilydale High School in a similar era to Mr Johnson when the school was transitioning from an elementary to high school from 1945 to 1949.
Ms Varty served as a member of the Victorian Parliament in the seat of Nunawading from 1985 to 1992 and then as the member for Silvan from 1992 to 1999. She also became parliamentary secretary of the cabinet.
She was also recognised for her role in the merger between the Victorian Ladies Bowling Association and the Royal Victorian Bowls Association, which is now known as Bowls Victoria.
Three graduates from 2005 were also recognised at the ceremony.
Ms Nethercote for her contribution to the arts, hospitality and travel industries, working on the TV show ‘What’s Up Down Under’, as well as the fishing show ‘River to Reef’.
She was also a big contributor to World Vision as a youth relationship representative where she was able to help coordinate fundraising efforts and was the biggest the school had ever seen.
After finishing high school, Mr Mattinson followed a path to become a cartographer and geospatial analyst where he creates maps, particularly contributing to rail projects in Victoria, as well as sustainability efforts.
He has also been working on the creation of a ‘Lord of the Rings’ style map of the Yarra Ranges standing 2.5 metres wide and 1.5 metres tall.
Taking his performing arts prowess from high school to the Victorian College of the Arts, Mr Nixon completed a masters degree in screenwriting.
He is now inspiring the next generation as founding director of the Melbourne Young Writers Studio and is producing two children’s TV shows which will be aired on ABC and Apple TV respectively.
Ms Powson congratulated each of the inductees for their incredible talent and work throughout their long and short careers.
“It’s not until we started going through the history of some of what you’ve achieved over your lifetime that we realised what amazing students come from Lilydale High,” she said.
“We only hope that everyone here, all of our current students, can also go into the future with such optimism.”
