Snowy Monaro

Distinguished and Famous people from Snowy Monaro

🏂 Torah Bright

Torah Bright was born in Cooma and grew up close to the Snowy Mountains snowfields. She began skiing as a small child, took up snowboarding at eleven and was competing professionally by fourteen. At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics she carried Australia's flag in the opening ceremony and won gold in the snowboard halfpipe. Four years later she added halfpipe silver at Sochi, where she also competed in slopestyle and snowboard cross. The breadth of those events reflected a rider comfortable with very different mountain challenges. Cooma supplies both her birthplace and childhood connection, before the international travel and competition that made her a winter-sport household name.

⚙️ Sir William Hudson

Sir William Hudson directed the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority from its Cooma headquarters between 1949 and 1967. The New Zealand-born engineer became closely identified with the enormous network of dams, tunnels and power stations, and with the multinational workforce building it. His work ethic was formidable, with office lights burning late into the night. The Australian Dictionary of Biography preserves a revealing mishap: he once tried to sack men he thought were taking an unauthorised tea break, only to discover that they worked for a different department. His demanding leadership helped drive the project, but its achievement belonged to many thousands of workers. He was buried in Cooma in 1978.