General News
28 January, 2025
Janet Watts, Ella Govan and Live4Life program recognised in Australia Day honours
Maryborough’s Australia Day brought out the very best in the shire, young and old, and from all kinds of backgrounds.
Maryborough citizens young and old came together to celebrate the shire’s very best at its heart on Sunday.
Station Domain was lined with people from across the community and beyond for the Australia Day ceremony over the weekend.
While the morning was filled with various events and ceremonies, the main draw was the 2025 Central Goldfields Shire Australia Day Award Winners.
Community Event of the Year went to Live4Life Central Goldfields, Young Citizen of the Year to Ella Govan, and top honours of Citizen of the Year went to Janet Watts.
Ms Watts’ contributions to the community aren’t measured in years, but decades of service and volunteering. She was a teacher for 40 years, used that experience to start a local youth group, and then went on to offer free tutoring to local students for 30-plus years.
“It was really an honour. Because I like myself to be a quiet achiever. You just go about doing these things never thinking that some day somebody is going to say ‘hey listen, that’s pretty good’,” she said.
Being a quiet achiever for decades means Ms Watts’ contributions go on. She has been a member of the CFA for 29 years, the SES for 10 years, and Dunolly Hospital Auxillary for 20 years, along with being on the Board of the Maryborough District Health Service for 11 years.
“When my children were about to go into guiding, I joined guiding and then ended up the commissioner. It was just a matter that we were taking from guiding and we needed to give back. And when our kids were in school I joined the school council,” she said.
Originally from Melbourne Ms Watts came to Dunolly after meeting her husband Fred Watts, whose family has been there since 1854. The couple recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary earlier this year.
“It’ll give her a sense of pride in what she’s done. Because she’s put a lot of volunteer work into the communities,” he said.
“It’s a lot of hard work but she never regretted one minute of it.”
Now at 81-years-old, Ms Watts shows no sign of stopping. Not only is she an active member of her church and op shop but she made it to the ceremony following heart surgery less than a week earlier.
“If you stop you die,” she said.
Everything that Ms Watts has done, and continues to do for the community, may just mean she lives forever then.
Awarded the Young Citizen of the Year Ella Govan never expected to take to the stage again after Live4Life won the Community Event of the Year, of which she volunteers as a crew member.
“I’m like ‘really?’ I was very confused and then people started shoving me towards the stage again,” she said.
Ms Govan volunteered to be a Live4Life crew member to help raise the profile of mental health awareness across the shire. After hearing it in primary school she introduced the phrase ‘be an upstander, not a bystander’ which she has modelled in her volunteering in the community.
Mental health isn’t Ms Govan’s only focus though, she’s also quick to mention her passion for sport.
In some ways it seems there’s more sports Ms Govan has tried than hasn’t. Not only has she refereed basketball at the Maryborough Sports and Leisure Centre for nearly three years, but also has a black belt in taekwondo, is a triathlete, cricketer, and has tried gymnastics, football, soccer, and badminton.
Community Event of the Year went to Live4Life. Since commencing locally in 2023, it’s the only mental health education and youth suicide prevention model specifically for rural communities.
Live4Life Central Goldfields coordinator, Shelley Feilding, said it was a privilege and an honour for Live4Life Central Goldfields to receive this award.
“We are thrilled that improving youth mental health and reducing suicide has been acknowledged as being vitally important to this community,” she said.
Ms Feilding said Live4Life has delivered teen mental health first aid to over 240 young people and youth mental health first aid to 50 adults in Central Goldfields.