Marie Billington is one of the newest Living Legend that was announced this year and like many, when she opened her letter from Bathurst Regional Council, she was shocked at the news.
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Ms Billington has been living in Bathurst since she moved here in 1975 and has taken up an active role at the Bathurst Early Childhood Intervention Service.
And that service hasn't gone unrecognised, courtesy of her new honour.
"That was such a surprise, a very nice surprise," she said.
"There are many, many people doing many great things to improve the facilities in our community and without them, I think the community would be a poorer place."
She said she wanted to dedicated her award to the Bathurst Early Childhood Intervention Service.
"It's where I worked for 20 years," Ms Billington said.
"When that service first started in 1979, it was the first service of its kind west of the Blue Mountains. There was nothing else for parents of children who were born with disabilities in the birth to six age group.
"It's filled a very important void in the community.
"It's something I'm very proud of because it's still in existence today, helping lots and lots of children."
Ms Billington was at the Bathurst Early Childhood Intervention Service when it launched, being the initial coordinator and teacher in charge.
Her role was to assess children, design programs and put those programs - which were designed to suit each child's need - into place.
The intervention service also proved popular for people right across the Central West.
"We had children coming from as far as Oberon, Cowra, Lithgow, Mudgee and Blayney because there was no other intervention program like that," Ms Billington explained.
"That wasn't ideal because they were travelling those long distances, so children were tired by the time they came to us.
"It then became a part of my role to put early intervention programs in place in those communities."
Ms Billington was born in Sydney but grew up at Wallerawang and went to school at Lithgow High School.
She studied to be a teacher, at the old Bathurst Teachers' College, which became Mitchell College and then Charles Sturt University.
"When I first moved to Bathurst in 1975, I worked as a casual teacher at various schools in the area including Carenne and then I was offered a position at Mitchell College as a teacher in charger of a remedial reading clinic, again working with students and children that were having reading problems," she said.
And while she's played a big role in the development and growth of the Bathurst Early Childhood Intervention Service, she's quite handy with the paint brush.
"I do paint. That's my enjoyable past time," she said.
"I dabbled around when I was at school but not until I retired did I dedicate time to improving my skills.
"I also like the theatre, I like movies, I like reading and I'm still volunteering in other areas in the town.
"I've worked for many different service clubs and cultural organisations. I'm still involved with the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery Society as a committee member and a committee member for the Bathurst Ladies Probus Club."
Marie Billington was announced as a Living Legend back on Proclamation Day in May alongside Barry Cubitt, Andrew Fletcher, John Sandra, Ian McArtney, Ian Warren and Millie Watson, adding to the 233 people already named since the project was introduced in 2015.