Vale Dennis Harris
DENNIS TREGONNING HARRIS OAM
Life Member of the Woolamai Beach Surf Life Saving Club
1/05/1938 – 18/07/2021
I know how much we will all miss that infectious smile and those bright sparkling eyes that reflected Dennis’ love of life and people.
Also his enthusiasm and energy, his positive and gregarious nature, and his penchant for a yarn and a story or two (occasionally with extra sauce).
The Woolamai Beach SLSC will certainly miss his tireless fundraising work and his endless ideas to help keep the club in the black.
Mostly we will miss a really good and loyal friend, a devoted family man, and a ‘True Blue’ Aussie who squeezed the most out of his 83+ years on this planet.
Dennis Harris was at heart a country boy who grew up on Phillip Island during a much less congested and hectic era. His father was at one time the Mayor of Phillip Island and the family were always involved in community activities. He loved the freedom of a country childhood with all of the sport he could cram in, especially football and cricket with local clubs, surfing, golf, and athletics. He also loved following the fortunes of those horses trained on the Island by his cousin, Kevin Price, and also those trained by their close friend, Cyril Beechey. Once he moved up to the ‘Big Smoke’ he took up professional athletics and played football with Prahran in the VFA alongside his good mate, Kevin Sheedy. He was particularly fond of Kevin’s remark at a recent Prahran F. C. luncheon that there were only two people Kevin knew from Prahran F.C. that had received an Order of Australia Medallion – ‘Dennis Harris and himself’.
Once Dennis had met and married his life partner, Kath, he and his brother-in-law, Murray Close, worked hard to establish and prosper in an automotive mechanical business of their own.
Dennis never did things by half and he worked so hard that the doctors told him he had to slow down or he wouldn’t see fifty so they sold the business and although being set up comfortably he started his next venture restoring vintage MG’s at home in Mt Waverley. He was often reminiscing on the many colourful characters he came across in their Prahran business, especially Lindsay Fox when he was starting out in his original one-truck operation, and Lindsay and he became lifelong friends and members of the Commonwealth Golf Club.
With their holiday house on the Island, it was only natural that his daughters, Sarah and Kylie, would follow his love of the ocean and when they joined the Surf Life Saving Club at Woolamai he was in his element. Firstly it was as an organizer and driver of the growing Nippers program and then he progressed to the main committee where he became Treasurer and focused on the club’s fundraising activities as well as his mechanical expertise leading to the club becoming one of the first Victorian SLC Club’s to have a mobile rescue vehicle operating on the beach.
Projects such as the sale of the Life Saving branded sunscreen continually flowed from his active brain and once the club launched the inaugural Channel Challenge event in 1986 in conjunction with his childhood friends, Lyle & Elaine Williams, he was off and flying. (Elaine grew up on a property next to the Harris family). Dennis loved the events and the involvement it gave him with the local community and it wasn’t long before he had helped organize an event at the Cowes end of the Island in conjunction with his old Phillip Island footy club friends and we now have the Cowes Classic as part of the Bass Coast Series. However, he will be best remembered for his work each year with the Hole-In-One golf tournament he ran at the Channel Challenge. Each year he would spend months visiting golf clubs around Melbourne cadging thousands of golf balls and as many old golf clubs as he could find and this was a perennial and lucrative favorite on Channel Challenge day until the loud voices from the politically correct had it shut down. Major raffles and collections, the ‘Woolamai Wipeout’ and ‘a day at the Woolamai Picnic Races’ were all under the supervision of Dennis.
Another idea attributed to Dennis and his good friend, Brian Taylor, was the concept of building an accommodation residence close to the clubhouse so that the older, experienced leaders of the club had somewhere to stay with their growing families and remain involved with the club. Dennis often stated that he picked up this idea from members of the Coolum Surf Life Saving Club where he often parked his caravan next to in the depths of the Melbourne winter and of course it wouldn’t be long before he was striking up a conversation with them as they went for their daily 9.00am surf.
Over the years Dennis has received many awards and recognition from our own club and from the shire of Bass Coast where he is a former ‘Citizen Of The Year’. However, he was especially appreciative of his recent OAM awarded by the Federal Government as recognition for his hardworking efforts and achievements for various community causes, especially that of the Surf Life Saving movement based at his beloved Phillip Island. The ‘wheel of life’ has recently turned full circle with the four grandsons of Kath & Dennis – Aidan, Blake, Leo & Jasper – all becoming involved with the club and Blake has recently used his training to help someone after a car accident and he and Aidan were both involved in a difficult rescue of someone who floated out to sea near their house.
WE will all miss him but we also know that we were fortunate to have shared our lives with a terrific bloke who gave more than most and lived a full, happy and productive life.
Farewell Dennis, you were one of the best!
Our condolences to Kath, Sarah, Kylie, and their families and they should know that our thoughts are with them.
Unfortunately in these lockdown times, the funeral for next Monday has been limited to the standard 10 family members only.
There is a Facebook page being organized where people are invited to post stories and photos of Dennis’ active life.
There is definitely a plan for us all to get together some time in the future and celebrate the great life of D. T. Harris along with his family and other friends.
Kindly written by Life Governor, Ron Nicholson