Patricia Davis-Hurst was born in a humpy on Sunrise Station (now Purfleet) near Taree. From these humble beginnings, she emerged as a community leader as she informally provided the services of counselor, community nurse, social welfare worker and corrective services liaison officer to Aboriginal people from around her district.
In 1975 she was appointed as an Aboriginal health worker by the New South Wales Department of Health. In 1980 she founded Taree's Gillawarra (now the Biripai) Aboriginal Health Service, and in 1983 established the Wonnai Cooperative in Taree. She was also a director of the Aboriginal Legal Service, a member of the Taree Housing Commission Board and a Justice of the Peace. She moved to the Taree Community Health Centre in 1983, where she remained until her retirement in 1990 due to ill health.
In 1985 Davis-Hurst received the Times-Telecom Advance Australia Award for her contribution to the Purfleet-Taree community, and in 2004 she was named as the Local Hero - Regional, in the 2005 Australian of the Year Award Finals. She held voluntary positions in a host of local organisations. Of her many achievements the two that stand out are the founding of the Gillawarra Medical Centre in 1980 and the Wonnai Aboriginal Corporation in 1983.
In 2003, Davis-Hurst was named an honorary doctor of letters by the University of Newcastle, and in 2005 she was named Australian of the Year NSW Local Hero. A year later in 2006 Davis Hurst was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (the second highest appointment in the Order of Australia).
US President Barack Obama was present Davis-Hurst's book Sunrise Station Revisted , the book is now on exhibition in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. Source: Hastings Gazette; The Australian Women's Register website http://www.womenaustralia.info/ (Sighted: 21/01/2011)
