Alumni from history

Dr Allan Vickers (1926-1931) attended Lavington Public School, and was one of the first two doctors of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.  Allan Robert Vickers was born near Euroa in 1901. His family moved to Albury in 1910, running the Lavington Store and Post Office for five years. Allan Vickers was responsible, with founder Reverend John Flynn, for the establishment of a network of flying doctor bases across the country and the foundation of the Flying Doctor Service as a national organisation.  Vickers was also appointed Quarantine Officer, Resident Magistrate, Protector of Aborigines, Mining Warden and Inspector of Fisheries. During World War II, Lieutenant Colonel Vickers was CO (1939-1943) of the Australian General Hospital, Perth.  Before he died in 1967, Qantas named one of its planes after him.
Sgt Charles George Bishop (1895-1931) attended Lavington Public School.  One of Australia's most decorated soldiers, Sergeant Bishop DCM, MM and Bar, was awarded a Military Medal in Belgium where he led a party of twenty four men into No Man's Land at 4am, returning without casualty.  He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal when he led a company of eighty five men at Augard and brought back three hundred prisoners.  He was awarded the Bar to the Military Medal at Malan Court where while wounded in teh jaw, he saved the life of an officer.  In his three years at the front, he was wounded three times and finally evacuated in May 1918. He died, age 36, from a weakened resistance to infection attributed to the gassing in World War 1. (Lavington's Water Celebrations, 1952)
Harold Frederick Neville Gye (1887-1967) was a prolific Australian artist, cartoonist and caricaturist under the name Hal Gye, and a writer of verse and short stories under the name James Hackston.  He attended Lavington Public School.  Gye's artwork was published in a number of newspapers and magazines.  Gye was also a noted book illustrator. His artwork was featured in the books of C.J.Dennis beginning with The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke in 1915 and he also illustrated books of verse by Will H. Olgilvie and Banjo Paterson.  From one of his short stories he wrote of his 1890's school life "We had no school tie, no badge or monogram; but the old school, although lacking in other conveniences, had a large fireplace , and in summer the scholars studied hard with the axe so that there would be tons of wood for winter.  It was cold in Black Range in winter; and we had blazing fires.  At lunch time, we used to put the billy on.  On mornings when it rained and we'd get wet going to school, we'd take off as much of our wet clothing as we could and hang it up by the fire.  On such occasions the classroom looked like a big farmhouse kitchen on a washing day that had turned out wet". (Gye H., Father Clears Out, p. 98)