Ballina

Distinguished and Famous people from Ballina

Ballina's notable connections include a race walker who developed through the local athletics club and a tug operator whose work helped vessels enter the Richmond River. The waterfront is part of both stories, through sporting commemoration and maritime history.

🏅 Kerry Saxby-Junna

Kerry Saxby-Junna moved to Ballina at thirteen and took up race walking through Ballina Athletic Club after initially competing as a swimmer and runner. She went on to represent Australia at three Olympics, finishing seventh in the 20-kilometre walk at Sydney in 2000. Commonwealth Games gold and world championship medals also marked her career. Her local association is an upbringing and club connection, with a riverside walkway named in her honour.

⚓ Thomas Fenwick

Captain Thomas Fenwick became a major figure in Ballina's nineteenth-century port through his tug service. Bringing vessels across the Richmond River bar demanded practical seamanship, and his business also included river transport and a slipway for maintaining vessels. Fenwick House at Shaws Bay remains a conspicuous reminder of that success. The mansion tells one part of the story; the working waterfront and the ships he handled tell the other.

🌰 Norm Greber

Norm Greber was born at Rous near Ballina in 1902, one of twelve surviving children in a farming family. Limited schooling gave way to farm work, while nearby macadamia trees supplied a fascination that lasted throughout his life. After moving to Queensland he selected productive trees, improved grafting techniques and became an influential grower and mentor. Later producers sought his advice, and he became the Australian Macadamia Society’s first patron. Rous belongs to his beginnings: the taste and texture of local nuts preceded the long experiments that helped establish a commercial Australian industry.

🤝 Nellie Stronach

Nellie Stronach ran an infants’ school at Ballina after her family settled there by 1908. She also sang at district concerts and musical festivals and volunteered with the Red Cross and Girls’ Patriotic League during World War I. Later work took her into army canteens, the YWCA and welfare service in occupied Japan. She became known for combining discipline with humour and for the care she gave people living away from home. Ballina records an early stage of that public life, when teaching, music and voluntary work were already bringing her into community activity.