Narooma

Distinguished and Famous people from Narooma

🐚 Sharon Mason

Sharon Mason is a Yuin artist and community leader whose work connects Narooma’s coastal resources with family knowledge. Her shell fishhooks, featured by the Australian National Maritime Museum, express a fishing technology requiring careful material selection and many hours of skilled making. Sharing that work with her grandchildren is part of passing knowledge between generations. The objects therefore belong to an active cultural practice, rather than merely illustrating a vanished past. Mason’s contribution joins art, practical understanding of the coast and the family relationships through which knowledge continues to be learned.

📚 Laurelle Pacey

Laurelle Pacey has helped preserve Narooma’s history through research, books and community organisations. Her publications include accounts of Wagonga Inlet, Narooma’s steamers and sawmills, Montague Island, Bodalla and Tilba. Her work with the historical society, School of Arts and heritage advisory activities connects that research with the practical care of local places and institutions. She received the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2019 for service to community history. A background spanning agricultural science, journalism and broadcasting helped her turn detailed research into stories accessible to a wider readership.