A large crowd of family and friends gathered at the Bundalong Recreation Reserve Hall on Sunday, March 19 to acknowledge Barry Hogan with a service award for a “true pioneer and a Bundalong champion.”
Barry’s Bundalong connection has spanned over 50 years beginning when his family first started holidaying in Bundalong.
Back then Bundalong wasn’t much more than a couple of fruit orchards, a dairy farm and, of course, the Bundalong Store which was call the Junction Store in those days.
Barry was also a founding member of the Bundalong Progress Association around the time that Pyke Street needed sealing, a hall and recreation centre was yet to be established and the junction tennis courts were still a paddock.
Thanks to Barry and other founding members of the Bundalong Progress Association, the popular holiday haven now has all these fantastic facilities and, of course, in those days, if you wanted something done for the community, you just did it, with the shire’s consent of course. History says they were a lot more accommodating in those days.
In those days, Bundalong Progress Association meetings were held around the fire at Barry’s waterfront home along with a couple of refreshments of course.
Dan Cronin was still with us then and as we all know, the recreation reserve was named in his honour.
Spokesman for the Bundalong Community Group, Peter Elliott praised Barry for his long standing service to the Bundalong community.
“Barry, you’ve seen some pretty amazing changes over the years, and we can all thank you for playing a huge part in our progress,” Peter said.
“We’d love to officially present you with this award and hope you are as stoked as we are about it.”