VALE Uncle Trevor Ballangarry: Gumbaynggirr elder farewelled in Macksville Nambucca Valley Nambucca Valley - popup ad Nambucca Valley News by News Of The Area - Modern Media - March 24, 2024 Macksville’s St Patrick’s Catholic Church was the location of Uncle Trevor Ballangarry’s funeral last Friday 15, March 2024. ON Friday 15 March, the funeral of Uncle Trevor Ballangarry, a sitting Nambucca Valley councillor and Gumbaynggirr Elder, was held at Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church in Macksville. More than 200 people attended the service, including members of the Nambucca Valley Council where Cr Ballangarry served for the past four years. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us. Phone us – (02) 4981 8882. Email us – media@newsofthearea.com.au Nambucca Valley Mayor Rhonda Hoban OAM and Council General Manager Bede Spannagle were both present to pay their respects. “I will miss him as a colleague but mostly, (I will miss him) as a friend,” Mayor Hoban told the congregation as she struggled to maintain her composure. Cr Ballangarry lived a full and adventurous life, Janine Reid told the mourners. In his youth he had been a promising boxer, a good horseman and he was a master plumber for most of his working life. He attended Macksville High before marrying his wife Janice and moving to Blacktown. Later the couple spent 20 years in Queensland where Trevor worked for the Brisbane City Council and Redcliffe City Council as a plumber. During this time, Mr Ballangarry frequently travelled back to his birthplace, the Nambucca Valley. “We belong to the earth! It never was and never will be ours. We belong to the earth,” was an often-used line of Mr Ballangarry’s, according to Ms Reid. Other presentations at the ceremony included tributes from the National Parks and Wildlife Service by Glenn Storrie and from The Community Transport Company by Greg Walcot. So passionate was Mr Ballangarry about his role as a Nambucca Valley councillor, Mayor Hoban said, that his last words to her were about a road that needed widening as he drifted in and out of consciousness in the days before his death. The contributions of much-loved family man, Gumbaynggir Elder, councillor and local personality, Uncle Trevor Ballangarry will be sorely missed by many in the Nambucca Valley community. By Ned COWIE Mourners, including fellow councillor and cousin Uncle Martin Ballangarry, farewelled Uncle Trevor Ballangarry’s coffin after a moving service inside the church.
