Hay Shire Council celebrated the official opening of a trio of projects on Friday.

To commence celebrations, a large group gathered alongside the Murrumbidgee River at Maude, to celebrate the opening of the new Maude Bridge.

The official party included Helen Dalton, Members for Murray, Senator Deborah O’Neill and Member for Farrer Sussan Ley.

Also in attendance was the mayor and councillors from Cumberland City Council, Hay’s sister council, as well as local Hay Shire councillors.

Photo gallery from Balranald Southern Cross Centre’s open day, commemorating the 90th anniversary of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s visit.

Massive crowds gathered at three simultaneous rallies in Deniliquin, Griffith and Leeton last week.

The protests against water buybacks to reach Murray Darling Basin Plan targets was a National Farmers’ Federation initiative, supported by the Speak Up Campaign.

The rally included trucks, tractors and farm equipment, driven to each gathering by angry farmers and irrigators.

The capture of US-based journalist Evan Gershkovich by Russia has rightly become an international incident, but behind the headlines and politics is a family desperate to see their son returned safely to them.

“I can’t even imagine how hard it is for him to fight every day to keep himself mentally and physically strong,” his mother said.

Mayor Carol Oataway has been nominated by Hay Shire Council to apply for a board position on the proposed Country Universities Centre (CUC) Southern Riverina.

Margaret Young (Bolitho) is one of the new recruits following her return to Hay from South Africa where she lived for most of her married life.

Image: The Riverine Grazier/Margie McClelland.

Pictured are John Perry, Noel Corliss, Dick Van Buuren, Don Butler, Peter Bisset, Tom Lugsdin, Alex Curtis, and Rob Rob Young.

Front: David Marshall and Eddie Redfern.

They are some of the winners of trophies at the Annual Presentation.

71 years ago Marg Beckwith, then five-year-old Margaret Short stepped off the good ship Dorsetshire onto Australian soil at Sydney Harbour.

She was accompanied by her parents and little brother Jim, aged two, and the family had travelled from Scotland as ’10 pound Poms’. Marg was born in 1947 in Stirling, a small city in central Scotland, within 50 kilometers of Glasgow and Edinbugh.

Marg shares her vivid memories of the trip across the ocean to sunny Australia.

Before Hollywood descended on the southern Riverina township of Hay, in NSW, to film part of ‘Mad Max Furiosa’ in 2022 the tiny township already boasted an impressive bio.

Movies such as ‘True love & Chaos,’ ‘Child Lost on Goolumbulla’ and ‘Charlie and Boots’ have been filmed at Hay, as well as the dark TV series ‘Mr Inbetween’, TV advertisements and Shannon Noll’s award winning film clip.

Hay Shire Council and Hay Plains Landcare Group have formed a partnership to address the beautification of the South Hay roundabout precinct.

And the Landcare group is keen to recruit volunteers.

Those driving down Lachlan Street would no doubt have noticed the bright and attractive new signage adorning the shopfront of Mackers Meats.

Gary McRae is passionate about the need for signage in the shopping districts of towns.

In addition to enlisting Anthony Slattery Painting to create some eye-catching business signs for the butchery, he is also getting new awnings.

The fate of teenage bushranger William Brookman was sealed when he joined the gang of Jerry Duce and held up a race meeting at Mossgiel Station, near Willandra, and shot a police officer at Booligal.

Learn how this prize-winning Uardry 0.1 Merino Ram ended up gracing Australia’s 1938 shilling - the story of the Shilling Ram.

Council has back-flipped on its final Murrumbidgee River Masterplan adopted two years ago which included the redevelopment of Sandy Point Reserve, particularly around the beach and boat ramp.

A Notice of Motion was received by Council for the recent October meeting from Cr Martyn Quinn, calling for the return of the beach as it was before last year’s flood event.

Learn how living in Hay in the 1880s contributed to Joseph Furphy penning the Australian classic “Such is Life”