The Southern 80 Ski Race is held in Echuca/Moama every year on the Murray River for all water speed skiing enthusiasts. It’s the biggest water ski race in the world and Island Cooler my families former boat had the privilege of winning the overall title not once but twice back in 1989 & 1990. I was approached through a friend of the Moama Water Sports Club who run the race to write a piece to go along with the newly named class of the Dawn Rowbottom Memorial ~ Open Womens Social.
Just like both my parents eulogies I left it to the very last minute. Like 22:00 pm the night before it’s submission date. Nothing like working under pressure right. No not really it’s because of the difficulty in doing it was why I left it until then. Some things still don’t come easy and although I’m through the worst of it talking about and writing about them is still difficult, very difficult. So here it is, here’s what I wrote and the photos that were used. Unfortunately there isn’t an electronic copy of the printed article so in lieu I have copied and pasted everything in here for those of you who are interested in reading about my Mum.
“Dawn Rowbottom, passed away peacefully from Small Cell Lung Cancer on Saturday 8th November 2008. In honour of her memory good friends Ross Langdon & Julie Sands have generously sponsored and re-named “Open Women Social” to the “Dawn Rowbottom Memorial ~ Open Women Social” in honour of her and all her work over the many years.
Too often do we only ever hear about the drivers, observers and skiers of water speed skiing. When in actual fact there are many behind the scene members that contribute to getting these teams up and racing. Dawn Rowbottom AKA “Mrs Island Cooler” was one of these. For those that don’t know she was the brains and business behind the “Island Cooler Ski Race Team”. Without her contribution we wouldn’t have been as successful as we were. There’s no “i” in team and for any team to be successful it needs good people behind it all working towards the same goal, they goal to be the best team that we could be.
Mum was hands on from the very beginning and supported the idea of getting involved in water ski racing. From the birth of Island Cooler every single detail was recorded and documented for our family history. Being the business woman that she was having ran administratively “Rowbottom Sawmills” for a number of years no detail was to small and nothing was ever left out. Mum’s attention to detail was second to none. An example of this would be the invoice she kept detailing the initial cost of creating Island Cooler. It takes pride and place in the first page of The Island Cooler Album.
In the very beginning, she approached and negotiated all of our sponsorships which we all know is extremely crucial with assisting in the running costs and maintenance of any race team. Island Cooler the company was our biggest sponsor and one of many supplied us with merchandise that was handed out to the team members as well as their families and friends. Then there was designing and sourcing of the team clothing, no team could go without this. This part she especially enjoyed doing. Mum was also the primary driver when traveling, driving our custom F150 with boat in tow. At the peak of our success we were traveling every single weekend between our home state as well as interstate for almost a year. As active business owners my parents couldn’t afford to be away from work all the time so we travelled through the night to get to and from race meetings all over the country. Driving ten hours straight over night then helping out all day on was a common occurrence for Mum. Yet she never complained. You name it and she would do it. Her love and support of her team and the sport was unquestionable. It even extended to our skiers. Often we would tow local and interstate skiers. Depending on the location of them and the race often accommodation and flights would have to be organised. Once again, this would be done without question and our skiers always catered for. They were all treated like members of our immediate family, especially former local boys Jamie & Travis Oliver.
Mum also got heavily involved in the V.W.S.A. (Victorian Water Ski Association) & A.W.S.A. (Australian Water Ski Association) as they were known back then. Her involvement was in the way of assisting out in the many buoy boats in all sorts of weather conditions doing what should could to help out. Then it was judging at that point scores then the river races. There wasn’t an aspect of which she wasn’t involved in. She loved it all and more importantly enjoyed it all. Even after Island Cooler she continued on helping out where she could. Still attending some of the closer river races supporting friends as well as making herself available for the trailer run for locals Phil & Annie Woods for the Southern 80.
Southern 80 was her all time favourite race out of them all. It was home soil and on her much loved Murray River. It then made perfect sense when she had requested to have her ashes placed into her Murray River. Geoff & Barb Sands ever so kindly allowed us to scatter her ashes into the river directly in front of their beautiful property. So although she won’t be here in presence this year she most certainly will be here in spirit. The race must always go on.”
written by Lia Halsall (Rowbottom)
xxx
