Lyn and Rob Smith have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in Bonny Hills, the retired teachers taught generations of families in the Hastings.
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The Bonny Hills couple celebrated the momentous occasion with a quiet breakfast together and a family dinner on Thursday, January 7.
Rob is adamant that he first laid eyes on the future-Mrs Smith at pre-school in Coffs Harbour and it only took until halfway through their education at Coffs Harbour High School to convince her.
"Lyn was terrified of me because I was a 'jetty boy' and she was an uptown Coffs Harbour girl. Back in those days it was a working port and top town was away from the industry," Mr Smith laughed.
"She was the apple of my eye since kindergarten and it took about the third year of high school until she stopped running away from me."
Both held a love of sports in high school with Lyn championing netball and hockey. Rob was focused on swimming, hockey and rugby league.
Lyn graduated from Coffs Harbour and become a home economics teacher after attending Teachers College in Newcastle. Rob repeated his leaving certificate and attended Sydney Teachers College to become a physical education teacher.
"I think that the fact we both wanted to teach was a good common interest. I was quite young when I started teaching and I was sent to teach at Mullumbimby High School for two years from 1959 to 1960," Lyn said.
"We got engaged in Mullumbimby and we had to have an appointment with the both of us at the same school. So we moved to Wauchope High School, the only high school in the district and both got appointments there in 1961.
"We didn't work together really because our faculties were so different but Wauchope was an excellent school. By the time we finished teaching we'd taught about three generations of kids."
Lyn taught in Wauchope for around 35 years until 1995, while Rob taught for an extra five years until 1998. The pair retired in the Camden Haven and built near the Bonny Hills Surf Lifesaving Club.
Both attended decades of State and Australian 'Aussie' championships in Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. Rob also known as 'Chaukie', has been a Mid North Coast surf lifesaving stalwart since 1952 and was awarded a Medal of the Order in 2003.
Lyn said the pair have made it to the 60th wedding anniversary through cooperation, understanding, communication and love of each other.
"Being able to communicate with each other has been very important and we do as much as we can with the kids and grand kids," she said.
"We've travelled all around Australia and we also went to New Zealand, Vietnam and China. We preferred to travel Australia and I don't think there is a place we haven't been here," Rob said.
The couple had three children Leanne, Peter, Megan and four grand children.