Dungog's Young Citizen for 2023 hopes to inspire women in agriculture.
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Claire Harvey was named the citizen of the year during Dungog Shire Council's official Australia Day ceremony.
"I was thinking I can't believe I actually won. I was just thinking about not tripping when I walked up to get the award," she said.
"It was very empowering to be in a room with so many incredible people."
One of the reasons why she was nominated was her ability to achieve so highly in the HSC despite her circumstances.
Having graduated from Dungog High School in 2023, Ms Harvey had to contend with a tough year while also completing the HSC.
She had lost a close childhood friend as well as her father, Allan Harvey, resulting in her missing out on three months of school.
Despite this, she dove back into school head first and managed to top a number of her classes.
"I didn't do very much schoolwork. After two or three months that I had off I did end up going back to school and I got thrown straight back into the HSC," Ms Harvey said.
"I ended up topping three of my classes, maths, bio and primary industries and I got a band six in business studies.
"It was very stressful. Put simply it was the worst year of my life but it was something that I really wanted to do and I wanted to make the people around me proud and I wanted to make myself proud so I persevered through everything and I tried my best."
Now that she has graduated, Ms Harvey is taking a gap year, planning on going to the University of New England in Armidale to study Agriculture and Business once her break is finished.
Another reason why she was nominated was her volunteer work at Stroud's SES branch.
"I started in June of 2022 and throughout my time with them I've ben learning different skills and doing different courses to increase my knowledge to better serve my community and help them wherever I can," she said.
Once her gap year is over, Ms Harvey is looking forward to doing business and agriculture.
"Women in agriculture don't really get recognised as a pivotal role and how important they are," she said.
"I'd love to create a better representation and be a role model so younger generations can be more educated and more empowered to do things for the future.
"It's quite an overwhelming goal but I also feel proud that I can try and make a difference and do something good."
If there's one lesson that Ms Harvey has taken away from her life experience it is that people are capable of more than what they believe.
"Never give up, you are capable of more than you believe. Like with me winning the young citizen award, that's one thing showing you are capable of more than what you believe because I could never have imagined myself winning that," Ms Harvey said.
