South-west student Anastasia Rea wins Gardiner Dairy Foundation grant

Anastasia Rea, an Emmanuel College Warrnambool graduate, won a Niel Black Scholarship for her involvement in community groups and events including Girl Guides and Clean Up Australia, and gap year work on a dairy farm.

She is also the great-niece of well-known local Tony Rea, a former Warrnambool Cheese and Butter chairman and founder of Sungold Field Days.

The grant will help fund Ms Rea's Advanced Diploma of Agribusiness at Longerenong Agricultural College and she will be hoping to do a Agricultural Science degree at Charles Sturt University.

Ms Rea owed her scholarship success to the work and experiences she attained during her gap year which was not in her original plans after Year 12.

"I applied for the Gardner scholarship and was unsuccessful, and was still going to go to uni, but then got offered a job that I just couldn't turn down," Ms Rea said.

Ms Rea took up a job on her second-cousin Eugene Rea's Childers Cove Holsteins dairy farm where she learnt her cattle farming trade.

"My main role was milking but I also reared about 250 calves throughout the year all by myself," Ms Rea said.

"I also had jobs like doing all the feeding silage to milkers, heifers and calves."

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Ms Rea said the main pleasures of the job were the "opportunities to meet new people" and learning new skills.

"I've handled calves on a small scale, maybe like 10 or so, but not 250," she said.

"I didn't know how to drive a tractor before I started working there. I couldn't reverse a tractor to save my life. I had to learn how to do that really quickly."

Although Ms Rea said she would like to take more time to decide on the career she wants to pursue, she has expressed interest in animal nutrition, stock agency and more recently, animal embryo transfer.

"I think that's something that would be right up my alley because it has a slightly science-y side to it," she said.

"I was always a very science-y person in school so I am hoping to go into an area where I can be physical, and handle the animals, but still also have that clinical side to it."

Ms Rea said she would encourage more South-west students to apply for grants and be open to gaining work experience outside of their studies.

"To anyone that's looking to do a scholarship in the future, even if you don't think you meet all the qualifications, just throw your hat in the ring, you never know what's going to happen," she said.

"Working before uni is one of the best things you can do. It was never something I wanted to do, but I'm so glad that I did."

Ms Rea was amongst seven recipients of the Gardiner Dairy Foundation tertiary scholarship with $30,000 to be awarded each to assist with the students' study costs.

The scholarships are granted annually to Victorian students in dairy communities who have completed their secondary schooling and demonstrated significant community contributions and leadership skills.

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