General News
18 January, 2025
Year in Review: January to April
A complete look at what made the news in Rainbow from January to April 2024.
JANUARY
- Rainbow is well positioned to attract tree-changers escaping the high prices of Melbourne, having been ranked the most affordable location in the state with a median house value of $149,475 and the fourth most affordable regional area in the country.
- At the Rainbow P-12 College Awards Night, the community celebrates the achievements of students including 2023 dux Tessa Leach, whose parents Steve and Nicole Leach both teach at the school.
- Hindmarsh Shire Council can't separate two worthy Year 12 students in Rainbow so opts to have the Rae Keam Award and $250 scholarship shared by Clarissa Bigham and Holly Doxey.
- Building and civil works to make over the Jeparit Swimming Hole precinct are almost complete ahead of an official opening ceremony scheduled to take place in March.
- Locals hope for light at the end of the tunnel when federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Catherine King, announces Roads to Recovery funding will double in the coming years.
- About 100 people tune in to West Wimmera Health Service’s annual meeting, receiving an update on the service’s operational status and hearing from two inspirational guest speakers.
- "It gives me great pleasure to announce Russell and Norelle Eckermann as the Lions Club Rainbow Citizens of the Year," club president Wayne Nitschke says during Rainbow's Australia Day celebrations.
- Jeparit Town Advisory Committee president Jason 'Hutto' Hutson announces its Citizen of the Year is also shared by a couple: in Jeparit's case, Jimmy and June Gawith.
FEBRUARY
- The dumping of car and truck tyres is "an issue" across the Wimmera, according to Horsham Tidy Towns chair David Eltringham, who says 2700 car and truck tyres were found dumped on public land in Victoria in at least 60 separate incidents in 2023.
- Rainbow's young Scouts put together an advertisement seeking people who are “big kids themselves", like to laugh and join in the fun, are supportive and have a good sense of humour as part of a campaign to attract more adults to lead them on their adventures.
- Neighbourhood House Rainbow’s new manager Asher Ludwig, having moved to the area with his family after living and working in Coffs Harbour, on the Gold Coast and in Sydney, is eager to get to know locals and ensure the services offered are what the community wants and needs.
- As the Wimmera celebrates one of the biggest events on its agricultural calendar, farmer Ian Penny credits defibrilation after a heart attack with enabling him to be among the 10,000 attending this year's 60th Wimmera Machinery Field Days.
- When The Body Shop At Home in Australia shuts down, the decision stuns both loyal and regular customers and 20-25 consultants across the Wimmera who receive a “cold email” advising them of the closure with little notice.
- The death of a third local farmer in three weeks sends shockwaves across the Wimmera as it mourns Merv Thomas of Wallup, Mark Huebner of Warracknabeal and Mick Morcom of Kellalac.
MARCH
- Having been born at Rainbow on March 5 1924, Dorothy Gosling (née Roll) looks back on her childhood on a farm south of Yaapeet and her education at Galanungah State School ahead of her 100th birthday.
- Rob and Helen Heinrich tackle the Riverina Outback Rally for Country Hope – a country-based, family-centred support organisation for children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses – in what organisers describe as an "amazing and fun" charity fundraising event.
- Eighteen members of Rainbow Lions Club and friends hold a four-hour working bee to completely clear out 31 tonnes of paper collected in their shed in Railway Street and prepare it to be transported to Melbourne for recycling.
- Hindmarsh Shire Council and West Wimmera Health Service, with support from the state government, hosts festivities in Nhill celebrating cultural diversity in the community for Harmony Day 2024.
- The cost-of-living crisis takes its toll on the district's most vulnerable, driving record numbers of people to seek groceries and financial assistance and many battling local families to plead for help for the first time from the Christian Emergency Food Centre.
APRIL
- In a move that pleases researchers but disappoints farmers, dingoes in North West Victoria remain protected despite the state government having varied an existing order of protection across the rest of the state.
- Wimmera agricultural scientist Dr Cassandra Walker is one of 26 participants nationally in the 31st intake of the Australian Rural Leadership Program, receiving a scholarship worth $60,000.
- Dunmunkle Sumpoilers members and keen machine restorers Gordon Mills of Kalkee and David Williams of Nhill say their McCormick-Deering Number 61 combine harvester is the only one in Australia as they prepare to have the machine ready for the 2025 Quambatook harvest rally.
- The Oasis Rainbow is the place to be as hundreds of people from across the region show up to support the town's third Big Sky Festival.
- Rainbow and District Landcare Group hosts an event aimed at helping to control and hopefully eradicate Rainbow’s burgeoning fruit fly population.
- Hindmarsh Shire Council announces the appointment of Dimboola local Monica Revell as its new chief executive officer.
- Some businesses and residents in Rainbow left without NBN internet services during planned maintenance.
- Wimmera residents are most at risk of experiencing crime inside their own homes according to new data showing that of 2758 criminal incidents reported to police in 2023 across the local government areas of Hindmarsh, Horsham Rural City, Yarriambiack, Buloke and West Wimmera, offences in residential buildings were highest.
- Jeparit resident Fay Gordes continues a campaign started in October 2023 to enable community connection across the Wimmera and the state by replacing the current once-weekly bus between Horsham and Jeparit with a more frequent service.
- Love, war, family relationships, personal entanglements, missing sons and adventure are all captured in a new novel by Sydney-based author Mary-Anne O'Connor that uses both Rainbow and Gallipoli as backdrops.