Colac Otway Region

Distinguished and Famous people from Colac Otway Region

🌾 Cliff Young

Beech Forest potato farmer Cliff Young won the inaugural Sydney-to-Melbourne ultramarathon in 1983 at the age of sixty-one. The achievement made an apparently unlikely competitor a national sporting figure. His Colac Otway connection is the farming district from which he came, with a road and park at Beech Forest later named in his honour. The region also became associated with long-distance events inspired by him. His story remains engaging because the extraordinary result came from a country runner whose background looked very different from that of a conventional professional athlete.

🩺 Marjorie Connor

Marjorie Connor was born at Cororooke in 1906 and became a determined advocate for nursing as a profession. Her own hospital apprenticeship left her dissatisfied, an experience that helps explain her later commitment to education reform. As executive secretary of the Royal Victorian College of Nursing from 1945 to 1972, she edited its journal and sustained lengthy campaigns. A major achievement was a requirement for at least 1,600 hours of formal instruction within nurses’ three-year training, secured after seven years of work. Cororooke was her birthplace, before a career devoted to improving the preparation and professional standing of nurses.