When it comes to recognition, there's few people more deserving than Annette St Clair.
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The tireless volunteer, melanoma awareness advocate and sun safety campaigner was on Thursday night named Wagga's Citizen of the Year - a well deserved honour for a woman who has dedicated so much of her time to helping others.
When Mrs St Clair lost her beloved daughter, Amie, to melanoma at the age of just 23 in 2009, she made it her mission to do her bit to prevent others from having to go through the same heartache.
The following year, the Amie St Clair Melanoma Trust was formed and a decade later it merged with the Melanoma Institute of Australia (MIA).
On Friday, as she reflected on the achievement, Mrs St Clair said she accepted the Citizen of the Year accolade on behalf of her daughter and would use it as an opportunity to "give back to the community".
"When Amie was sick, we received an enormous amount of support from them and they have continued to give," she said.
"The success of the Amie St Clair Melanoma Trust is a result of us living in a very generous community."
In a fitting synergy, Mrs St Clair's acknowledgement came on the same night melanoma researchers Richard Scolyer and Georgina Long were named joint Australians of the Year.
Professor Scolyer and Professor Long are co-directors of the MIA and have visited Wagga multiple times.
In accepting their awards, they said a radical rethink of sun safety and tanning was needed.
"We must elevate sun safety to equal status with other life-saving safety measures like wearing a seatbelt or a helmet," Professor Scolyer said.
Mrs St Clair said she also planned to use her award win to continue increasing awareness of melanoma and skin cancer.
She said a melanoma diagnosis used to be akin to a "death sentence", but that had changed thanks to research like that being undertaken by Professor Long and Professor Scolyer.
Mrs St Clair is very well known in the Wagga community.
She has been an active volunteer with the Cancer Council for more than 10 years, has provided free skin checks, has helped with Relay for Life and has facilitated 'Living Well After Cancer' workshops.
Mrs St Clair has also been involved in the 'Saturday Morning All Abilities Bowling' league program and the St Paul's Youth Group.
He community involvement is so significant that The Daily Advertiser was inundated with congratulatory comments when we revealed her win on Thursday night.
"A well deserved honour to bestow on such a hard working person as Annette. Wonderful news," Jeanette Marj wrote.
"So well deserved Annette. A lot of hard work fuelled by a heartfelt passion to make a difference," Leonie White said.
We couldn't have said it better ourselves.
There are so many people out there making a difference in our communities.
To those people - including the other nominees for Wagga's top accolade this year: Bill Lane, Dawn Haddon and Judy Heard - thank you all for your significant contributions.
Thank you and congratulations must also go to Wagga's Young Citizen of the Year Angus Smith, the Wagga Demonstration Gardens for its Environmental Citizen of the Year accolade, and also to Peter Cox, who was posthumously inducted into the city's walk of honour.
On Friday, we were also privileged to be able to share the stories of the Riverina's Australia Day honours recipients - each with a different list of achievements but bonded by a desire to make a difference.
Each of those people are fitting examples of what makes regional communities such great places to live and work.
Those people, and the work they do, are the threads that hold the social fabric of our towns and cities together.
The significance of that can not be overstated and it's imperative we keep that work going into the future.
There's no disputing this year's Riverina Australia Day honours recipients had plenty of life experience on their side.
One of them rightly expressed concerns about the future of many organisations and groups that rely on volunteers, given the limited desire from younger generations to get in and help.
While there are many younger people out there doing great things, the risk of groups folding due to ageing memberships remains a live concern.
We all have limited time in our ever-increasingly busy lives but anything you can give is better than nothing.
Like Annette, we can use our passions to help make a difference - and often it's the little things that have the biggest impact.
Have a great week.
Andrew Pearson - Editor, The Daily Advertiser