HOWQUA-local Sarah Stegley was recently awarded a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia under The King’s Birthday 2023 Honour List.

On a local scale, Sarah was the founding member and president of the Howqua Valley Landcare Group, an organisation that dates back to the 1980s - one of the earliest Landcare groups in the state.

Sarah was a member of the Mansfield Mullum Wetlands group, a group that was instrumental in developing and ensuring the preservation and protection of this vital ecosystem from potential development.

Sarah was a member of the Alpine Advisory Committee and currently is on the committee for the Mansfield Cultural Heritage and Arts Centre.

In the 80s Sarah served on the board and as chair of the Mansfield District Hospital.

Her involvement with local community groups, includes the Mansfield Emergency Services Precinct committee, Project Mansfield and the Mansfield Matters Group.

“It is incredibly valuable that community members are involved in the direction that community takes,” Sarah said.

“It is the community that needs to determine the driving principles and philosophy behind development and growth.

“I’ve found that people stay here, and newcomers move here because Mansfield isn’t like everywhere else.

“Our philosophy as a community must be to maintain that difference and appreciate and build on what has been done so far to protect and enhance what Mansfield is.

“The community of Mansfield has done an extraordinarily good job maintaining our individuality and the things about the shire that make it special.

“However, we need to keep pushing for what we value - like the environment and the cultural and historical aspects of our shire, and its fabulous heritage values.

“It’s about keeping up the dialogue and maintaining that transparency, whilst demanding the best for the region with a strong focus and an emphasis on self-determination.”

The third of six children, Sarah was 16 when she decided she wanted to follow a career in agriculture.

“I remembered going into the office of this gentleman from the Department of Agriculture, and I explained that I wanted to study agriculture at Dookie,” she said.

“His response was that I couldn’t as I was a girl.”

Now Sarah doesn’t like to be told she can’t do something – that it’s not possible.

She comes from a family of achievers, of people who look at creating solutions, a trait that has followed them all through in a variety of philanthropic endeavours.

So, Sarah applied to Massey University in New Zealand and was accepted, the one female amongst a cohort of 99 young males.

And she topped her year level.

On graduation, Sarah headed overseas.

“The travel bug hit me, and I hitch-hiked all over the globe,” she said.

What initially began as backpacking however led Sarah to Lesotho where she spent two years as a consultant for the United Nations on a food and agricultural project.

It was 1974.

Historically the communities had grown corn and millet, however the UN had plans for the small nation to transition to cash crops and consolidate its lands.

In order to do this the UN lent the community money, on the proviso that when the crops were sold the loan would be paid back, effectively indenturing the local community.

“I learnt enough of the local language to be able to advocate for the rights of the community,” she said.

“And I learnt a lot from the experience.

"I arrived in Lesotho incredibly positive - I was enjoying myself on this massive adventure – and though I really valued my time in the country, when I left, I was quite disillusioned.

“It was my first real introduction to the mechanisms of bureaucracy, and I left questioning the practicality and integrity of the project.

“The overall philosophy driving the project was not appropriate and it was actually a disservice to the people.

“In my life I have seen this everywhere.

“However, this was the first time I became directly aware of it and was witness to the impact of poor and corrupted policies.

“As unpleasant as it was, it was a lesson learnt well.

“You only need to learn that lesson once and I’ve been awake to it ever since,” she said.

It was on her return from Africa in 1976 that Sarah was cast in the role of philanthropist.

With the untimely death of her father and mother a few years earlier, Sarah along with brother Brian (now deceased) and sister Kristin took over primary roles as trustees within the family’s Stegley Foundation.

A private philanthropic trust set up by Sarah’s parents Brian and Shelagh Stegley (the founders of Stegbar Windows) the Foundation directed funding towards disability, Aboriginal well-being and self-determination, and to older Australians – financing ground-breaking initiatives that were quite revolutionary at the time.

Another key difference of the trust was the proactive nature of its implementation with the trustees' approaching organisations that worked in their priority areas, asking them to determine what would make a difference.

“The foundation was driven by increasing social justice through structural change,” Sarah said.

As trustees, Sarah, Brian and Kristin distributed well over $7 million to Victorian charities and community groups over the lifespan of the trust, with the foundation finally wrapping up in 2001.

“Capital within the Foundation was there to be disbursed, rather than re-invested to generate interest,” said Sarah.

“It was not set-up in perpetuity.

“The money was spent wisely on a variety of initiatives and endeavours, over the period of time that would have been our parents’ natural lifetime if they both had not passed away at the young age of 53.

“It was honouring their legacy and finishing a very important job that they had started.”

Adding to this extensive list of achievements, Sarah was also the founding member of the Australian Association of Philanthropy, as well as Women in Philanthropy, and Australians Investing in Women, whilst carving out a career in the hospitality and tourism industry.

During these years, Mansfield and the Mansfield Shire were a grounding influence, a place at first to visit and later to call home.

The Stegley family’s connection to the region dates back to 1956, to the year that Lake Eildon was flooded.

Sarah’s father and his crew from Stegbar Windows came up on a long weekend, and on a block jutting out into the waters of Eildon near Jamieson, they erected a family holiday home.

“It is one of the first prefabricated houses in Victoria,” said Sarah.

The house is still in the Stegley family, with sister Kristin and husband David Vivian often staying there, having painstakingly restored it.

Sarah lives around the corner in the Howqua Valley, on the banks of the river.

As part of Howqua Valley Landcare Group, Sarah and all the members of the HVLCG are intent on ensuring the health of the local waterway and ecosystems.

“The Howqua community is just one group within the shire that I have the privilege to work alongside,” said Sarah.

“The shire as a whole is an amazing community and I’ve had the pleasure and good fortune to collaborate with some incredible people.

“The King’s Birthday honour list nomination is humbling, but more so because it is recognition of all these incredible people who have worked tirelessly, volunteering their time, energy and resources for the betterment of the shire.

“This award is for them.”

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Most unusually, both sisters have been honoured in this year’s King’s Birthday honour list.

Kristin Stegley has also been recognised for her years of contribution to Heritage in Victoria, in particular her dedication to the National Trust of Victoria.