In a remarkable coincidence, three former winners of the Royal Agricultural Society's New Zealand young rural achiever award are all working in the town.
Jane Smith (formerly Ruddenklau), now a rural manager for Rabobank, won the award in 2003 when she was in Gore and a senior field officer for Ravensdown Fertiliser.
The following year, it was won by Steve Belton, then a field officer for Ravensdown in Nelson and now a PGG Wrightson finance manager.
Completing the trifecta is Micheal Dunn, who won in 2005 when he was a rural manager for Rabobank in Invercargill.
He is now Rabobank's Oamaru branch manager.
The award recognised excellence among young people and was given as acknowledgement of achievements gained in agriculture and its related industries.
"A condition [of winning] was you had to come to come back and work in Oamaru at some stage," Mrs Smith joked yesterday.
The trio, who all studied at Lincoln University, all attended the Royal Show in Perth, Australia, as part of their prize, a trip Mr Dunn (34) described as "awesome".
He and Mr Belton (34) were both originally from North Canterbury, while Mrs Smith (31) grew up at Five Forks.
At the time of receiving her award, Mrs Smith was involved with Young Farmers, was the only female firefighter in the Gore Fire Brigade and organised the Starlight Ball at Lochiel as a fundraiser for the Child Cancer Foundation.
She and her husband moved back to her family farm two years ago and she has been working for Rabobank for two months.
Mr Belton, former Young Farmers national vice-president and contest chairman, worked for Landcorp in Rotorua and Wellington after leaving Ravensdown.
He moved south last year and lives at Waikouaiti.
Mr Dunn has been with Rabobank since leaving university.
He worked in Invercargill and then North Canterbury before moving to Oamaru in 2008.
The three were impressed with the opportunities in North Otago and positive about the district's future.
