And what a wonderful celebration it was. Past and present students and staff of the school came together to celebrate its organisation.

I was lucky enough to be one of the first students of what was then the Canobolas High School, a new high school for Orange.

How fortunate I was to be able to return and attend the 50-year anniversary and be together again with school staff and a number of great school friends. I experienced a weekend of reliving good times.

A big thank you to everyone who worked to organise this fantastic celebratory event.

My best wishes now go to the Canobolas Rural Technology High School for the next 50 years and beyond.

May the future of the Canobolas Rural Technology High School and its staff and students be even brighter and better than the last 50 years.

WHAT a wonderful community we live in.

The time and energy freely given to raise funds and promote worthy causes for projects such as health, supporting families in need, promoting local sporting events and heroes and raising awareness of environmentally-sustainable practices.

Radio and television announcements list community events; residents and businesses give generously to meet these targets.

In this context, it is difficult to come to terms with Orange City Council spending in excess of $12 million to purchase prime land at Huntley and Spring Hill near the airport where it proposes to create another industrial zone.

Consider the alternative infrastructure projects possible for our city and surrounds.

Council’s proposal would result in a rezoning of protected environmental management, water catchment and identified biophysical strategic agricultural land, thus removing existing protections of possible contamination and destruction of our most valuable assets.

Let's ensure the safety of our drinking water and preserve the security of our most productive fertile agricultural land.

Oppose the rezoning by rejecting council’s proposal so that the clean, green image of Orange as the food and wine destination remains untainted.

NO doubt Australia has a drying-off trend when a sufficiently long timeline is observed. Building dams for water is a necessary activity because of the demand placed on water now and into the future.

Building one or the other of the Cranky Rock walls would no doubt place Cliefden Caves in peril of being damaged or flooded through the extra mass of the water sitting over possible fractures in the rock that might break through into the galleries below.

A comprehensive geo-tech investigation should be carried out to put to rest the damage or penetration question given that most of the galleries appear to sit above the projected water-lines anyway, but no 3D representations of the complex appear to show the position relative to the waterline.

Apart from this, one of the major problems for dams is silting and a design must incorporate a method of flushing to prevent silt accumulation behind the wall.

Regards,