MAROONA\u2019s Kelly Gellie has been recognised by her peers as one of Australia\u2019s best wool classers.<\/p>\n
At the recent Sydney Royal Easter Show, Ms Gellie won first prize in the AWEX\/TAFE National Graduate Wool Classer competition, beating entrants from across the country.<\/p>\n
The win is even more remarkable considering Ms Gellie has only held her wool classing certificate since July 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you graduated in 2023 you get to compete in show in 2024 if your name is put forward. There were ten of us put forward, one from Victoria, one from South Australia, one from Tassie and seven from New South Wales,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Contestants were judged on five activities including classing a crossbred clip, medium merino clip and super fine clip as well as a five minute talk and an exercise to value some wool.<\/p>\n
Ms Gellie said wool classing runs in the family.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad is a wool classer and my father-in-law Kerrin has been a wool classer for 50 years. I went down to Hamilton for one day a month and trained down there for 18 months.<\/p>\n
She said she attended the Royal Easter Show without any expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went up there with no expectations. It was pretty exciting and to have Darren and the kids there was very special,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA good bale of wool involves a few factors, good sheep, good shearers and a good team in the shearing shed to bring it all together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerrin Gellie, father-in-law to Kelly, has also been recognised by AWEX for 50 years as a wool classer with a framed certificate marking his service.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to Geelong at 16 to learn wool classing past time at Gordon Institute and 50 years have passed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had never had any visions of getting it (the 50 year certificate and stencil), you don\u2019t until you get to about 45 years and I thought geez I\u2019ll hang out to 50 years to get the gold stencil,\u201d Mr Gellie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always taken great pride in what I do. You\u2019ve got to present properly because at the end of the day the wool sells under your stencil, you\u2019re the last one to see it so if the mills from overseas pick something up, you\u2019re the one who gets in trouble,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Gellie said he was delighted his daughter-in-law was part of a new generation of wool classers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s in good hands going forward. It makes handing the baton over to the next generation much easier. I\u2019m pretty proud,\u201d Mr Gellie said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MAROONA\u2019s Kelly Gellie has been recognised by her peers as one of Australia\u2019s best wool classers.
\nAt the recent Sydney Royal Easter Show, Ms Gellie won first prize in the AWEX\/TAFE National Graduate Wool Classer competition, beating entrants from across the country.
\nThe win is even more remarkable considering Ms Gellie has only held her wool classing certificate since July 2023.
\nKerrin Gellie, father-in-law to Kelly, has also been recognised by AWEX for 50 years as a wool classer with a framed certificate marking his service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_9049-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-Ba","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2304"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}