A Cooroy State School student has won the Laraine Mahoney Writers Award for 2020, which was introduced in memory of a much loved member of the Cooroy Book Club, who passed away in 2018.
Laraine Mahoney was a teacher at the Cooroy State School, a member of the book club in Cooroy and a prominent member of the Genealogy Group.
Cooroy-Noosa Genealogical and Historical Research Group (CNG) in association with the Cooroy Book Club and the Cooroy State School, now conducts a yearly “Best Writer in Year 6” Award.
Year 6 student Heidi Anthony was presented with her prize of $100 and a trophy in the school’s library by her English teacher, Betty McAdam.
Heidi’s written piece is titled “The Grand Lord Brumby” and will be featured in the March edition of the CNG’s Missing Link Journal.
Her inspiration was a picture of a rickety foot-bridge, supplied to the students for a writing exercise.
In her piece she imagined a story in which the bridge breaks and the character falls through, far down into the river below and emerges, battered but luckily still alive, on the shore of a wonderful, somehow magical island.
Heidi, who said she would like to work with animals one day, featured a brumby horse in her story.
Heidi’s interests will be well served when she starts high school next year at Noosa State High which offers agricultural studies alongside the usual academic classes.
The Missing Link Journal is published twice a year in March and November. The public can access the Journal online at the website: www.genealogy-noosa.org.au.
