The late James Penrose’s national service will be honoured with a memorial stone in the Coolaroo park named after him.
Hume councillors have given the green light to a proposal by the National Servicemen’s Association of Australia to install a stone memorial and a weeping tree in James Penrose Reserve.
Mr Penrose lived in Kalimna Crescent, next to the park, for 43 years until his death in 2013. The park was named in his honour as a tribute to his years of community service.
Mr Penrose was a community bus driver for Dianella Community Health, a former president and school council member of both Coolaroo South Primary School and Broadmeadows Technical School, a volunteer coach for local junior sports clubs and a volunteer driver at the Sydney Olympic and Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
He was also instrumental in establishing the Hume Community Register, for which volunteers routinely call the municipality’s older residents to check on their health and well-being.
He also helped form the Coolaroo Netball Club in the late 1970s.
An official naming ceremony for the reserve was held in late 2013.
Mr Penrose completed national service between April 1955 and April 1960.
His daughter, Jodie MacDonald, said the memorial was a great honour for her family. “It’s something we’re really proud of. Dad was so community-minded,” she said.
