Twin brothers with a love of music, a veteran, a champion bowler, a doctor, a loyal volunteer and more Hunter personalities have been recognised with King's Birthday honours this year. Newcastle Herald journalists spoke to them about their awards and their contribution to the community.
Milton and Allan Ward - By Anna Falkenmire
It all started with family sing-alongs around the piano in the living room of their grandmother's house.
Identical twins Milton and Allan Ward were born 87 years ago with a generational love of music.
For decades they have seen how it brings people together, from army troops in Vietnam and patients at John Hunter Hospital, to primary school children and retirees.
Milton and Allan consider themselves chalk and cheese, and jokingly bicker about who has the bigger folder of accolades or the most photographs.
But the decorated Novocastrians now have more in common than their matching moustaches, with each awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in the 2026 King's Birthday Honours for service to the community through music.
Their mother was their guiding light - with "a stick in her hand", they laughed - as she got them practicing their instruments morning and night.
Milton's passion was the piano. Allan's was the drums, but he also played the banjo, mandolin, violin and saxophone, and by the time he was 26, he could also play the clarinet, flute and trumpet.
When Milton Ward and the Jazz Cats started in their early teens, their mother roped in their sister, Netia, to play the drums. It broke Allan's heart.
Milton and Allan loved playing together, "except when we fought", which was regularly, because they both saw themselves as leaders.
The twins have played with countless musicians, in numerous bands launched by themselves and others, in front of many different audiences. They have held many committee positions, but they knew they could always count on each other.
Milton was a volunteer pianist at John Hunter Hospital for 20 years until his own Parkinson's diagnosis made the keys go quiet last year.
"It relaxes them, people walk past and say 'oh that's terrific'," he said.
His reason for playing on for two decades was simple: when he was at home, he wished he was playing the piano.
Milton went to Vietnam in 1968 and 1969 to entertain the troops during the war. During one performance, there was an emergency and everyone had to run for cover as it rained mortars. When it was over, the show went on.
At a veterans' event just last year, he was sat next to a Newcastle man he had spoken to behind a tent in Vietnam after a concert all those years ago.
Milton's piano days may be behind him, but music remains the soundtrack to his life.
"I still love music ... very much so," he said.
"I think it's very joyful, brings people together, and reunites family."
Allan accidentally found himself teaching music programs in primary schools. A teacher at his kids' school asked him to bring his saxophone in one day in the early 1970s.
He took in various instruments and did a 40-minute session. The teacher said it was amazing and started calling other schools.
Over the next 20 years, Allan ran music program A Fun Trip Through the Orchestra for young students across the Hunter. He toured remote parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory.
"It gives them an opportunity to play, to learn something, to learn a discipline and go on to better things," Allan said.
He was approached to start an instrument rental business, and Allan Ward Music was formed.
The twins were never too far apart. Milton directed the King Edward Park Christmas carols for years while Allan was involved at Lake Macquarie.
They came together more recently because they wanted to play in a band again, and found Allan's retirement village had a spare hall on Tuesday nights. Milton has since left but the eight-piece band still meets.
The twins say that both being awarded OAMs has been one of the best things that has happened to them. They thanked their families and their wives, June and Maria.
"You think oh well, your life's finished, and then suddenly this comes along and it's like 'pow!', beautiful," Milton said.
Ken Fayle - By Madeline Link
Ken Fayle has never been out for recognition.
The Vietnam War veteran has spent decades ensuring the sacrifices of servicemen and women are acknowledged, but for someone who understands the importance of looking back, Mr Fayle has always been forward-focused.
The past president and current trustee of the City of Newcastle RSL sub-branch and convenor of the City of Newcastle Anzac Day Committee has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his service to veterans and their families.
"The lesson that we try to give them is that you are not alone, that the community at large and the ex-service community is a huge one, and we're all here to help one another," Mr Fayle said.
"There's no embarrassment or shame in putting your hand up and saying, 'Listen, can you give me a hand?'
"We have to look forward and say we have made changes for the better."
Mr Fayle served with the Royal Australian Engineers in Vietnam in 1970. He has been a member of the Anzac Day Committee since 1998 and much of the growth of the crowd at the Nobbys Anzac dawn service over the years has been put down to his work.
"I think there's a greater understanding amongst younger people that what we have as a democratic country, we owe a lot to those diggers from World War I, and even more to the diggers from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Malayan Emergency, it goes on," he said.
"We watch now generations of people come to that dawn service, people who were there in 2006 with their parents and are there now with a child of their own and you think, 'Gee, that augurs well going forward'."
Mr Fayle said he enjoys the satisfaction of a job well done.
"A volunteer should never seek accolades or rewards, but if you enjoy what you're doing, you just keep doing it," he said.
"I think you see a need, and you fill it."
Mr Fayle said he was grateful to be awarded the OAM.
"There are mixed emotions, I'm extremely honoured, but you don't do anything in isolation, you're always part of a team," he said.
"There's been a huge amount of people that I've worked with, but I'm honoured, it's nice that somebody thought of me that way."
Dr Gabor Major - By Damon Cronshaw
Dr Gabor Major was a key figure in pioneering rheumatology as a specialty medicine in Newcastle in the 1970s.
At the time, rheumatology was "still struggling to be recognised", Dr Major said.
"I was able to establish a rheumatology department at the Royal Newcastle Hospital, with support from the late Dr John Glass.
"I look back on that with a degree of satisfaction."
Dr Major was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the King's Birthday Honours for service to rheumatology.
He's been the head of rheumatology in Newcastle since the 1970s.
Born in Hungary, Dr Major came to Australia during the Hungarian revolution at age 12.
His achievements include establishing paediatric rheumatology services at John Hunter Hospital, including a transitional service so "children can move from paediatric to adult services smoothly".
"My colleague Fiona Niddrie, a nurse, has been very important in setting that up and a pillar of strength," he said.
"We've established an osteoporosis re-fracture prevention program. We want to expand that to the whole of the Hunter."
A key part of Dr Major's role is treating people with rheumatic disease.
"They primarily have an inflammatory form of disease that typically affects the joints," he said.
"But it's not necessarily confined to that. It affects muscles, the heart, lungs and everything else. It's a multisystem disorder."
He also treats people with arthritis.
"There's osteoarthritis, the degenerative kind that comes from wear and tear, and the inflammatory version, which is exemplified by rheumatoid arthritis," he said.
Dr Major was drawn to the rheumatology specialty while he was a trainee registrar, aiming to become a physician.
"When I started, rheumatoid arthritis was a ticket to being on the road to using a wheelchair or walking stick," he said.
"The outlook was quite grim. Now there's a whole range of medications developed through understanding the disease at the molecular level."
When he started in the immunology field, there were visions of better treatments in future.
"The revolution in biologics is now sweeping the world. It began in rheumatology," he said.
He said the same degree of improvement had not been made for osteoarthritis.
"It remains a very stubborn problem that has not released its secrets, enabling us to fix it," he said.
"That's unfortunate because osteoarthritis is the most common form. It affects everybody over the age of 60 to some degree."
Vicki Woods - By Josh Leeson
Vicki Woods adheres to the motto that if "you want to see things change, you've got to be involved, and you've got to be part of the change."
Mrs Woods' unquestionable commitment to being an agent of change over more than 30 years has seen her exert massive influence over Hunter tourism, hospitality, health and politics.
That service has been recognised in the King's birthday honours, with the former Maitland deputy mayor made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the general division for significant service to the tourism and hospitality industry and to the community.
Mrs Woods' service to Hunter hospitality and tourism began in 1989 when she and her husband, Bruce, took over the Bushrangers Bar & Brasserie in Largs.
The pair would own the country establishment for 30 years, turning it into a beloved community hub renowned for its service and quality food, long before the gastro pub trend.
"Because we were not a hotel that had a focus on gaming, our focus was on our food, and we actually made money from our food," Mrs Woods said.
"So that was really nice. I could sleep at night knowing that we were doing a really good thing, looking after our community."
That service to hospitality has previously been recognised at the Restaurant & Caterers Awards, with Mrs Woods winning excellence for best restaurant in a pub six times and she's claimed three schooner awards in the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Pub Food Guide.
Mrs Woods became the secretary/treasurer of the Newcastle branch of the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) NSW in 1995 and by 1999 was encouraged to become a Maitland councillor.
"We were in the hotel and there were development applications in the community, and they were just wrong, and so that's how it started," she said.
"I had people that came to me and said, 'Vicki, would you speak at a council meeting in regard to this?' It sort of went from there."
Mrs Woods would serve on Maitland council from 1999 to 2008, which included two stints as deputy mayor.
During those years Mrs Woods expanded her community service in various fields.
She joined the Hunter Region Tourism Organisation as director, was chairperson of the Maitland Liquor Accord, was an executive board member of the Restaurant and Catering Industry Association NSW, co-founded the Women's Network Hunter NSW and was its first secretary and co-founded a scholarship for the Maitland Regional Art Gallery.
"I was a bit ahead of my time with the AHA because they're like, 'Who's this woman that thinks she can come along and do this?'," Mrs Woods said.
"It was a little bit of a boys' club. It just all fell into place from there; anything that remotely affected my business.
"If you want to see change, you've got to be part of that change."
In the past two decades, the 60-year-old's focus has turned to health and seniors.
In 1991 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), shortly after becoming a mother.
In 2004 Mrs Woods became a Multiple Sclerosis Plus NSW ambassador and then a support worker in 2006. She's also been a Hunter Medical Research Institute Foundation board member since 2008 and was the director of the Elder Abuse Action Australia from 2019 to 2025.
"I've been well for up to about 10 or 11 years ago," Mrs Woods said of her MS.
"I ended up progressing, and I've ended up in a wheelchair. But it hasn't quite slowed me down completely."
Mrs Woods moved into the inner Newcastle suburb of Wickham after selling the Bushrangers Bar in 2019 and is keeping busy doing her WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines to potentially become a sommelier teacher.
She's also become an ice bath devotee, having 10 a week to manage the impact of MS on her body.
"I swim anywhere from 600 to 700 metres, and then I walk out of the pool," she said.
"Then I go from the pool up for an ice bath, and it just sets me up for the rest of the day so that I'm still moving at 10.30pm. It's amazing. So cold water therapy is such a game-changer for me."
Darryl Clout - By Matthew Kelly
Darryl Clout got his first taste of sports administration when he went to a softball game with his then eight-year-old daughter, Alison, more than 40 years ago.
Little did he realise he would end up being the president of two national sporting organisations (Softball Australia and Bowls Australia) and the vice president and president of two international sporting organisations (International Softball Federation and World Bowls).
The 75-year-old had been made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his extraordinary service to sports administration and to the community.
In addition to softball and bowls, Mr Clout has been a Commonwealth Games Australia board director, a parliamentary adviser to numerous government ministers over 30 years and a senior government executive, which included leading the NSW Department of Sport and Recreation.
Mr Clout, who is also chair of the Regional Academies of Sport, said he had been privileged to have had the opportunity to lead organisations that had figured in many successful world championships and Commonwealth Games.
"It's very pleasing when you're involved with an organisation with good boards and good staff. The results come from all the hard work that everyone puts in," he said.
As a current board director of World Bowls, along with being an active member of Marks Point Bowling Club, Mr Clout has witnessed a revitalisation of the sport over the past two decades.
There are 400,000 registered members in Australia, but anecdotally there are a million people who step onto a bowling green during the year.
Many of those are barefoot bowlers.
"They're not counted as registered participants, but they're certainly walking onto a green, they're keeping clubs open, which is important," Mr Clout said.
"If you look at the demographic of most bowling clubs, there's certainly a cohort of people over 60 or 70, but there are more and more younger people coming on board. If they're not registering, they're playing barefoot bowls, or just social bowls."
Mr Clout's latest challenge is to have bowls recognised as an Olympic sport.
World Bowls, along with Bowls Australia, is making a push for inclusion in the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.
"We've had a really positive response from the Brisbane organisers and from the IOC. They keep asking us for more and more information," Mr Clout said
"We're looking at trying to get on the main program, but also on the para program, because there's a very strong contingent of para bowlers around the world and Australia is very good in the para scene."
Nicholas Newton - By Dylan Nicholson
Nicholas Newton's love for the red and yellow began as a young nipper on the Hunter Coast, igniting a love for the sport and the people around it.
That passion would eventually lead Mr Newton back to the famous flags as an adult and right to the head of one of Newcastle's most famous surf lifesaving clubs at Merewether beach.
Mr Newton's hard work and dedication over 30 years of wearing the cap has been recognised. He has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to surf lifesaving.
"I started as a nipper when I was about seven years old out of Hawks Nest, but then I moved away and got into surfing," he said.
"I got back into it in the early '90s, when I joined Dixon Park."
Mr Newton would move across to the Merewether club in 1997, becoming patrol captain in 2000 and then captain in 2004.
He said it was his competitiveness as a ski paddler that initially attracted him to the club.
"What got me into it was the physical side of it, training is part of the culture," he said.
"I have been there ever since.
"Once you get into the volunteering you realise just how great of an organisation it is.
"You really see how much of a community these clubs create."
Mr Newton said being a part of the surf clubs had brought him a great deal of satisfaction.
"You don't do it for recognition or anything. You do it because you want to, because you believe in your community," he said.
"I love the Merewether, Dixon Park, Cooks Hill area, it's just fantastic, the culture here, a real beach culture."
Mr Newton has served as the president of Merewether SLSC since 2014, where he has seen the amount of work everyone puts in to keep a surf club working and serving the community.
"Things have changed massively in the way we operate. We need to operate as a business now," he said.
"We need to keep the money coming in because it is very expensive to run a surf club.
"We have a lot of equipment that takes a beating from the ocean and elements that we need to keep in top shape, and that takes the whole community coming together to manage."
Mr Newton said being president was "a bit of a two-edged sword".
"It's a great thing because you meet everyone in the club and these are the best people. We have great people, great committees, and I have a great executive which takes some of the pressure off me," he said.
"There is always the politics that comes with the role, and you are the person at the end of the day responsible for the success of the club, so there is a bit to do.
"But it has been a great journey."
Mr Newton signalled 2026 may be his final year as president at the club.
"There will be someone new taking over doing a great job in probably 12 months, but I have loved it."
Mr Newton said surf clubs were a unique volunteer organisation.
"We are very much in the public eye, so we work amongst all the locals and welcome our visitors to enjoy our coast with us," he said.
"That is a part of the enjoyment of the organisation, it connects you to the wider community."
He said there was a responsibility, history and reputation attached to the famous red and yellow.
"When something happens people go to the red and yellow because they trust us," he said.
"The red and yellow is iconic. Our club is 119 years old, and those colours have been there for most of that time.
"That is a culture upheld and driven by our members.
"The beach is a great level playing field. You could be there on duty with a surgeon or someone from the cafe down the road, and it doesn't matter, you are both there to do the same job and that creates a real camaraderie."
Mr Newton said his nomination from the club for the OAM came as a complete surprise to him.
"They kept it tight-lipped," he said.
"There are so many people who work so hard for this club so I am very appreciative but would love to recognise all their hard work as well."
MORE NOTABLE HUNTER RECIPIENTS
- By Gabriel Fowler
A MAN who helped and guided thousands of police officers during his career as a psychologist, and wrote several self-help books including 'Police Under Pressure', has been posthumously awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for his service to community health.
Dr Roger Peters, of Cooks Hill, wore many hats throughout his professional life including as vice president of the Australian College of Private Practising Psychologists, president of the Employee Assistance Professional Association of Australia, and a contributor to the International Guidelines for Employee Assistance Programs.
Over time, he developed what he described as "a close relationship with policing" and a 40-year connection with trauma and its treatment.
He was a University of Newcastle tutor and lecturer and a member of the Australian Army Reserve, receiving a Reserve Force Decoration and an Australian Defence Medal from the Australian Defence Force.
His last day of service was one month short of his 75th birthday.
Dr Peters died in 2024, a loss to the community as well as to his family which included eight grandchildren.
Another man who went above and beyond, putting in thousands of hours volunteering, is receiving the Australian Fire Service Medal for his distinguished service with the Tilligerry Rural Fire Brigade in the Lower Hunter district.
During his 24 years of service, Bruce Williams McGrath, of Thornton, has been deployed interstate, helping to combat fires and floods at some of the worst disasters Australians have faced. While senior deputy captain, he worked to amalgamate two brigades into the Tilligerry Rural Fire Brigade of today. His exceptional leadership oversaw the smooth and professional formation of this brigade for the community.
Mr McGrath was instrumental in establishing the Lower Hunter Fire Control Centre, helping to organise, coordinate, and build the training ground, carry out and manage training courses, and develop and maintain training grounds for all NSW Rural Fire Service volunteers and staff to use, offering advice on improvements utilising his engineering background.
Another Tilligerry Peninsula OAM recipient is Suzanne Hamilton of Tanilba Bay singled out for her work in community education, literature and events, as well as volunteer work at the library, preschool, public school, and Scouts.
Hunter-based hockey legend Peter Sweeney is being officially recognised for his contribution to the sport with an OAM, while Robert James Smith of Tea Gardens is being honoured with an OAM for his service to the community through emergency response welfare organisations.
His work has included serving as a board member with the Employees of New South Wales Fire Brigades Relief and Welfare Fund, which he founded in 1988, for 38 years. With Fire and Rescue NSW, he was the first chairman of the Critical Incident Debriefing Team, 1988-1990, and a former personnel superintendent.
He is further recognised for his contribution as a marriage celebrant, and as the co-founder, former director and president of the Association of Civil Marriage Celebrants NSW and ACT.
Robert Wilton Webster of Cooranbong will receive a Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the communities of the Terrey Hills region, including through his work with Apex and Terrey Hills rugby and tennis clubs.
Aberdare resident Maxwell John Lewis is also receiving an OAM for his service to veterans and the community which includes serving as president of the Hunter Valley District council of the Returned and Services League of Australia NSW, and as vice president before that.
Margaret Ann Wheeler of Newcastle is being awarded an OAM for her service to the community which has included serving as president of the New Lambton St Therese's Ladies Conference for the St Vincent de Paul Society, of which she was a founding member in 1971, and her work as a volunteer at the Islington Centre Op-Shop.
She has held numerous roles with the Newcastle Branch of the Victoria League, St Therese's Catholic Church, Newcastle Legacy and the Heart Foundation.
For her service to general and palliative care medicine, Dr Fiona Boyd is also receiving an OAM. Specifically, she is honoured for work as a visiting medical officer at Calvary Mater Newcastle since 1992, nursing homes including Carey Bay Nursing Home, Carey Bay Hostel, CA Brown Anglican Village, and Kilpatrick Court.
She continues to work as a medical student supervisor at the University of Newcastle as well as for the Hunter Postgraduate Medical Institute, and continues to supervise GP registrars.
Owen Kilpatrick will receive his OAM for his service to rugby league and the superannuation industry, and Dr Roger Hampson will be honoured with an OAM for his service to medicine as a pathologist.
