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Sport
If there was a man to be feared on the football field back in the 70s it was David “Chook” Howell. Howell was tough in a time when the fight for premierships was a hand-on-heart backyard turf war, where players worked by day, lived by one set of colours and played the full 80 minutes in a game governed by...

Community
The hearts of battle-weary soldiers would have swelled with delight if they had seen young Nicola Franklin and her mum Trish Nolan, wearing onesies, sitting at the entrance of their Chillingworks Road property patiently working on a front gate Anzac Day tribute one cool autumn morning this week. The words Lest We Forget aren’t easy work when chicken wire and...

News
Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement that Australian Community Media (ACM) had suspended printing operations, stood down staff and closed office doors amid the COVID-19 pandemic, independent media outlets including Region Media are responding to the challenge. Smaller non-daily regional papers across the South East will shutter their print operations as a consequence of the downturn, affecting many...

Food & Wine
The timing could not have been better for the Young district than a visit from Ed Halmagyi of Channel 7’s Better Homes and Gardens, whose food segment on the district aired nationwide on Good Friday night. If you didn’t live there you’d immediately want to be there as this showcase of some of the Hilltops’ finest produce was filmed, post rain,...

Sport
It was just a split-second decision by Jindabyne teenager Josie Baff that delivered Australia its first gold medal at the Winter Youth Olympics in January this year. The 17-year-old's triumphant feat in the final of the women's snowboard cross at the 2020 event in Lausanne, Switzerland, on January 20, left spectators awestruck as the four finalists zigzagged their way through...

Food & Wine
Never have 33 bottles of wine meant so much to so many on the NSW South West Slopes. But those 33 bottles of wine hold the hopes and dreams of dozens of winemakers from Tumbarumba, Canberra and Hilltops as they sit in London. Waiting. But if there was a person to wait for it’s got to be Jancis Robinson, the...

News
More than $2.75 million in cash has been seized by NSW Police following a targeted search of a truck in Yass yesterday. Acting on a tip-off, highway patrol officers from the Criminal Groups Squad’s Strike Force Raptor, approached a prime mover parked at a service station at Yass Valley Way at about 10:15 pm on Thursday 16 April, and spoke...

Community
If people in the bush can be thankful for one thing in an emergency, it’s the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS). And right now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the service is proving it still has our backs. Built on Australia’s pioneering past – thanks to the vision of missionary Reverend John Flynn – the service offering medical services to remote...

Community
The Druce family of Ardlethan, in southwest NSW, are masters of innovation, and their Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory is a sweet and lasting reminder of that. During these times when the health of the nation is challenged due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and many of us are sitting in idle isolation, you’d be forgiven for turning to the immune...

News
A Kyeamba man has been charged following an investigation into an alleged multi-million dollar cattle fraud in southwest NSW. Led by the NSW Police Rural Crime Prevention Unit, Strike Force Seger was formed in April 2019 to investigate suspected cattle fraud in the Riverina region. The fraud, which investigators will allege is in excess of $2.5 million, involves the alleged...

News
Just two new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the far south of NSW at Berrigan on Saturday, while the number of confirmed cases in Southern NSW has also increased by a small margin over the past three days. There are now 53 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Southern NSW Local Health District and 42 cases in the Murrumbidgee...

News
It’s been a good news weekend for the staff of Murrumbidgee Local Health District (MLHD) who have been tossed into 2020 like cats into a washing machine, first with bushfires on their doorstep and now COVID-19 trying to gain entry through their front doors. First and foremost came the news, and possibly hope, that the rate of infection of residents...

News
Any hopes of a 2020 vintage from Tumbarumba, Hilltops, Gundagai or Canberra appearing on a shop shelf near you have just about gone up in smoke in the past two months. As vignerons endured extreme drought, fires became their next nemesis, particularly for those close to Canberra and Tumbarumba. Those who survived the flames were faced with another formidable foe...

Community
Atop hill or down valleys, for many farmers and residents living in south-west NSW, there was always looming exasperation when it came to mobile phone and internet coverage. It seemed that once a black spot, always a black spot. And that felt a bit like the cart, led by a blinkered horse, lumbering clumsily along a rough track while just...

News
A 74-year-old woman has died in Albury overnight marking the first death from COVID-19 in the Murrumbidgee Local Health Service District (MLHD) and taking the national death toll as a result of the virus to 25. The woman was one of six cases in the border city and local health authorities say that she had acquired the infection as a result...

News
Hilltops local government area now joins the list of COVID-19 affected shires in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District (MLHD). Two positive COVID-19 cases have been identified in the shire bordered by Boorowa, Harden Murrumburrah, Jugiong and Young in the past 24 hours. Berrigan Shire and Snowy Valleys Council area have also recorded increases of one case each, taking the total number...