When you've exhibited at the Albion Park Showground pavilion for more than 70 years it seems appropriate they name the building after you.
That's the honour the Albion Park Show Society is looking to bestow on Albion Park couple Doug and Daphne Blow, who had exhibited everything from vegetables, pot plants and jam to floral art and farm produce.
Shellharbour City Council has agreed with the show society's request to rename the building the Doug and Daphne Blow Pavilion.
"The commemorative naming of the pavilion, proposed by the Albion Park Show Society, will recognise two exhibitors, volunteers and tireless workers who have contributed to the show over many decades," the council papers stated.
At that council meeting Maree Duffy-Moon supported the plan.
"I heartily congratulate these wonderful people," Cr Duffy-Moon said.
"We are led in our region very well by our volunteers. They do an enormous amount of work. The amount of work that's been done on the showground, people who contribute to that, I think it's an exciting thing to see. That's a real testament to them and the job they've done."
Cr Kellie Marsh was another who backed the decision.
"Doug and Daphne have an outstanding reputation not only in Albion Park through their work in agriculture but through the broader community," Cr Marsh said.
"They certainly have an exemplary volunteering ethic and I think this is wonderful that we can honour them both in this way."
The couple, who have both passed away, were part of the fabric of the Albion Park Show for decades.
The first time Doug won an award at the show was aged seven, when he and his father entered the potato crop category, while Daphne was both an exhibitor and steward between 1966 and 1999.
Their love of agriculture and plants was something they shared with others.
"At his home opposite the Albion Park Showground he conducted a plant nursery where he grew vegetable seedlings that the whole community would come and purchase for their own gardens," a submission to the council stated.
Daphne and Doug met through church functions and Junior Farmers shows, and they married in September 1944.
In 1997 both Daphne and Doug were honoured as Shellharbour Citizens of The Year and in 2002 received the Order of Australia.
The name change of the pavilion is now on public exhibition for 28 days.
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Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
