Community
8 April, 2026
Tech to host ANZAC ceremony
COBDEN Tech are partnering with the Cobden Cemetery Trust for the sixth year in a row to host their very own Anzac ceremony at the Cobden Cemetery.
The ceremony, which will take place on Wednesday, April 22 at 11am, invites all members of the community to join and stand in remembrance of Australians and New Zealanders who served and died in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.
“The ceremony was instigated by one of the teachers who used to teach at Cobden Tech – she was from Trinity and she did it in Colac and when she came out to Cobden she decided to start it here,” Cobden Cemetery Trust member Denise Robertson said.
The ceremony includes the placing of flags at the graves of local soldiers who served in wars, with a total of 106 known returned service members buried in the Cobden Cemetery at the time of publication.
Community members are able to submit known family members gravesites to the Cobden Cemetery Trust with details of their service and burial location to be included as part of the service.
“We started off with 40-odd flags,” Mrs Robertson said.
“Now we have 106, and that’s just the ones we know about.
“It’s wonderful to recognise everyone and we’re such a small town.”
Two Cobden Tech students, Chali and Ewen Robbins, are honouring their grandfather Ronnie Greagan and great-grandfather Ewen Matthew Greagan at the ceremony this year.
They served in the Vietnam War and World War II respectively.
“It makes us think about how we got here and we are so grateful for all the people that fought,” Chali said.
“We can remember what they did for us and we can just carry that on for generations upon generations.”
Humanities teacher Jen McLennan said the ceremony was a fantastic, tangible way of being able to recognise the Anzacs.
“Coming from teaching humanities, we talk about world wars, but being able to see the flags, and as a small community we can see the visual representation, it really is quite moving,” she said.
“We’re involved in a few different aspects of organising it, so we’ve invited Hampden P-12 School and also Cobden Primary School so they’ll have the opportunity to lay wreaths.
“Also, we’re going to extend the invitation to other community members to lay a wreath on the day as well.
“I know that we get a lot of community members coming up – we’ve got members from Ambulance Victoria coming up, we’ve got some members of Victoria Police also showing up.
“We extend a big thank you to Camperdown RSL for helping with the address and providing the poppies and the shelves that we have each year.”
Mrs McLennan said the ceremony has grown to be quite a wonderful event.
“Our Year 11 and 12 Vocational Major (VM) students will be going up the day before the ceremony and they’ll be cleaning the graves and putting the flags up and that’s just as important as the actual ceremony itself,” she said.
“We like to give the students who have family members at the cemetery the opportunity to post flags there.
“We show Facebook live so we actually stream the event, so for those who may be unable to attend the event for whatever reason, they can still see it.”
Mrs Robertson encouraged any and all people to come and attend the ceremony.
“Everyone is welcome – it’s open to the public,” she said.
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