Queen's Birthday Honours: Tathra's Margaret Taylor presented with the Medal of the Order of Australia

A quote Ms Taylor has chosen to live her life by was 'never see a need without doing something about it', attributed to Saint Mary Mackillop.

A long-serving career in teaching and education gave Ms Taylor an understanding of the power of knowledge, both for others and for herself.

Ms Taylor was raised in family of dairy farmers in Warragul, Gippsland before starting her undergraduate and post graduate in teacher education in Wagga and Wollongong. She moved to the Bega Valley in 1987 to be closer to family who lived and worked in the region.

She worked for the NSW Department of Education for about 45 years before finishing her career teaching at Tathra Public School in 2017.

READ MORE QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY HONOURS:

Ms Taylor has authored multiple children's educational books on literacy, health, civics and citizenship, Indigenous language, primary industry, and resource management.

One of her most significant educational resources was a book on Dhurga and Thaua - two dialects of the Yuin language group - while teaching at Tathra Public School.

The book was put together through consultation with local Elders Uncle Ossie Cruse and Uncle Graeme Moore and words in both dialects have appeared across schools in the Bega Valley thanks to that work.

In the aftermath of the occupation of Timor Leste (previously known as East Timor), Ms Taylor was facing adversity in her own life and decided to go to the region to assist with education around health to help mitigate disease outbreak.

She travelled to Timor shortly after a trip to Switzerland and said the contrast between the two countries was alarming. In 2008 she spent 12 months in Timor to help with education efforts "as a catalyst for change".

She worked with the Mary Mackillop Institute in Dili and was asked to teach English to the university students, however the health crisis quickly became apparent when her students would come to class without having sufficient food or with malaria or other diseases.

There she was able to help introduce solar radios into the country and assisted her students to produce a radio program that would relay health and hygiene messaging in an accessible form.

Her work around health and hygiene based education as well as language programs in the country led to countless resources being distributed around Timor to disseminate the information far and wide.

On a local level Ms Taylor has been a Bega Rotary member since 2016 and was president between 2018 and 2019, but prior she was a member of Finley Rotaract for eight years.

During her presidency she established the Bega Rotary Business Group which targeted local younger business people to try and improve the longevity of the club and increase their available funding.

Prior to COVID, the club had managed to get 30 businesses involved in a breakfast networking event, something with the club has committed to revitalising.

For her work during that time she was awarded the Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International.

"I love Rotary because at a local level you can do so much to change a situation," she said.

RECENT NEWS:

She was also chair of the Bega Business Council (BBC), a sub-group of the Bega Chamber of Commerce, between 2000 until 2010 and was a member until 2012.

The development and construction of the Sapphire Marketplace shopping centre in Bega took place during her time as chair where her role was to make sure the project was community driven and became a reality.

She also formed a subcommittee of community members and key stakeholders to initiate and reignite the Bega bypass project that was completed in October 2013.

Other significant developments she oversaw as chair included the first community consultation meeting to direct the development of South East Regional Hospital, the ANU Medical students program in Bega, and the acquisition of the first diploma of teaching intake where 25 HECS places were allotted at the University of Wollongong Access Centre.

Ms Taylor was also responsible for writing grants in the Tathra community and was successful in gaining $1.2M for the Tathra Headland walking track and securing $168K for the Tathra fire shed education centre extension - along with the help of other Bega Rotarians.

"We all have capacity to do great things, but it's finding what role we have within a community or organisation and really embracing that," said Ms Taylor on what motivates her to do so much for those around her.

"You only have one life - live it! You don't know what tomorrow is going to bring."