An Innisfail high school student was awarded the first ever Frankie Bates Memorial Scholarship.
Zike Maree, a Grade 12 student at Innisfail High School, was given the award to pursue lifeguard training.
The award is named for Frankie Bates, an Innisfail resident who spent many years in the town’s schools. When she was two-year-old, Bates fell down into a cistern on the family’s farm near Tilley.
A 15-year-old Bob Wardle had just completed his lifeguard training and rescued her from near drowning. Bates had been in 10 feet of water and had stopped breathing. Wardle applied artificial respiration after he got her free of the enclosure.
Wardle was awarded the Royal Lifesaving Society Mountbatten Medal, which is given annually to the most gallant rescue in the British Commonwealth.
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