By Roman Kulkewycz
EIGHTY-six-year-old Bunyip icon Joe Cumming OAM was awarded a 70-year service medal for his outstanding years of service to the CFA at a special CFA function held in Bunyip last month.
All of those years have been spent at the Bunyip Fire Brigade where Joe was captain for 31 years.
He is a life-member of both the CFA and the Bunyip Fire Brigade. Joe still attends brigade meetings and takes an interest in the training track activities.
The brigade training track at the Bunyip Recreation Reserve is named the “Joe Cumming Training Track” in his honour in recognition of the huge amount of time and effort that he put into its planning and construction. Joe is the only surviving member of the original competition running team.
Joe says that he has been on most of Bunyip’s community committees, but now is only involved with the fire brigade, Bunyip Recreation Reserve and the community market committees. He continues to be a great asset to the local community.
In 2013 Joe was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in recognition of outstanding services to his local community.
Joe has been married to Joyce for 64 years and the couple has four daughters, including a set of twins. They have lived in the same house since they married.
In his younger days Joe played football for Bunyip in the winter months and concentrated on fire brigade in the warmer weather. He worked as a maintenance man in the district and drove trucks for a while too.
In his spare time Joe enjoys making knick-knacks out of wood for his family and friends.
