AN Oberon High School student has won the trip of a lifetime – and she’s one of only a select group in NSW to do so.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Peta McGrath is one of 20 year 10 and year 11 students from across NSW to win a prestigious 2018 Premier’s Anzac Memorial Scholarship.
She can now look forward to embarking on a tour of the battlefields and memorial sites of the Western Front in Europe in June and July 2018.
Member for Bathurst Paul Toole said the students will travel to Flanders in Belgium to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Hamel on July 4.
“The 13-day tour will also take in other significant Australian battlefields including the Ypres Salient, Passchendaele and the Somme,” he said.
Mr Toole said the Oberon community would be extremely proud of Peta’s scholarship win.
“The 2018 scholarship ballot was very competitive and close to 100 schools across NSW applied,” he said.
“All of the applicants should be commended for their strong leadership qualities and interest in Australian history.
“This is a sensational opportunity for Peta to represent our community and gain a better understanding of the Anzac legacy.”
Peta said she is very excited about the trip.
“There were four students interviewed at Oberon High School and to be selected was amazing,” she said.
“I have only travelled to Fiji, but this will be a trip of a lifetime.”
Oberon RSL Sub Branch president Bill Wilcox said all four were worthy of being selected.
“Oberon Sub Branch members will be organising something for the other three contestants,” he said.
“Maybe a trip to Canberra to visit the [Australian] War Memorial.”
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs David Elliott said the journey would be something the students would draw upon for the rest of their lives.
“The Premier’s Anzac Memorial Scholarship is a fantastic program, which enables high school students to further their education by visiting key historic battlefields in France and Belgium where Australians forged the Anzac spirit,” Mr Elliott said.
The students will be joined by an official party on the tour, including three supervising teachers and a tour historian.