Award winner keeps secret under his hat
When West Arthur Shire president Ray Harrington took to the stage at the community breakfast on Australia Day, he took pleasure announcing the names of citizens who helped make the shire great, yet kept a secret of his own to be unveiled last.
Mr Harrington, a 67-year-old Darkan farmer and co-inventor of Harrington farming aids for crops and sheep, was awarded an Order of Australia medal for service to primary industry some six months earlier and kept it under his hat until Australia Day.
“I even hid it from my partner, I hadn’t told a soul,” he said.
“I’d been quietly coping with the emotion of being acknowledged for the 40 years I have been in the industry I love. It was very touching.”
Mr Harrington and his brothers, David and Douglas, contributed to the farming industry by inventing products to ease the work-strain on farmers. “The crunching cradle came first, then the jetting race and afterwards came the Vee Sheep Handling Machine,” he said.
Mr Harrington went on to invent the Seed Destructor alone and the Agmaster Harrington No-Till Points.
He has served as a director of Grain Pool WA and was chairman of CBH grower’s advisory council among others.
“I couldn’t have done this without my brothers,” he said.
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done with my farm in mind and I’m lucky to have worked with leaders in the ag industry,” he said.
