“I have always had a soft spot in my heart for The Bald Archys,” she told The Free Press.
“For many years, Peter Batey, its founder, was on the board of Riverina Tourism and I can often remember visiting his home - the old school house - at Coolac, seeing many art pieces on display and even met the judge Maude the Cockatoo!
“It is true, tongue in cheek, Peter would hold up an art work for Maude to assess. If she nodded her head up and down it went in the exhibition!”
Fona, who chaired Riverina Tourism in the 1990s, said some names in the photograph of Bald Archy admirers last Thursday may be familiar to Corowa residents.
Mary Fraser being related to the Martins, Jan Smith whose father was Sgt. Smith, police officer in the 1960s and whose mother was involved in the Methodist Church, bowls, golf and tennis locally. Jan married local Alan Smith and worked in the Rural Bank. Brien Giersch’s father Cecil worked in Bank NSW 1928, his great grandfather won a gold medal in Corowa P&A show 1885, for building a farm wagon.
“Brien is keen to contact the Federation Museum concerning the medal,” Fiona said. “Harry McDiarmid worked on the building on the old Corowa nurses quarters in 1950.”
She, and fellow Howlong resident and volunteer Liz Hall, said all the many visitors to the Bald Archy exhibition in the Corowa Art Space in the town’s civic centre spoke so well about this year’s exhibition.
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