Hotelier Pat Sheehan takes over the reins at the Marong Racing Club tomorrow when the club hosts its annual cup meeting.
This continues a tradition of providing family entertainment for the many hundreds of racegoers heading to the Epsom racecourse.
For Pat this particular race meeting is unique as it involves hundreds of volunteers who contribute to its success.
The ultimate result is the many thousands of dollars that will again be distributed to the eight catholic schools in the Diocese of Sandhurst.
The popular publican of the Rising Sun Hotel is happy to lead the country racing club in to a new era and seeing first hand how a volunteer army of workers can make this very special day so successful.
Our Newsmaker was born in Bendigo and attended school at St Kilians and then Marist Brothers before heading to the Bendigo Institute of Technology to undertake a course in Diploma of Commerce.
“My very first job in the workforce was with the John Brown textile firm in Marong Road,” Pat said.
“I was employed as a cost accountant and also had a role with the Star Hosiery sock factory at Kyneton to do costings.
“I stayed in that role for four years as well as helping out with the family hotel.
“It was in 1970 that I made the decision to come and work at the Rising Sun Hotel and then about that time my brother Kevin went to play football at Geelong.”
 “His role in football development blossomed from there. This weekend he is at Dubai for the Collingwood and Adelaide match and cannot be in town for the Marong Cup,’’ Pat said.
Our newsmaker has seen many major changes at the Rising Sun Hotel since the Sheehan family moved in to the hotel almost 55 years ago.
But nothing rivalled the time when pubs began to operate seven days a week.
“I guess that one single issue was the Sunday trading,” he said.
“It took a long while to adapt to the trading hours because Sunday was always a family day and you could go water skiing at Bridgewater and then return for a family roast together.
“I think it took about 12 months to get used to and that was definitely the biggest change for the hotel industry.
“Then we were one of the first to develop a drive through bottle shop to boost the business.
“Another big change came in 1990 when we moved from being an entertainment venue and created a new dining area and then in later years we had the development of a gaming room,’’ Pat said.
The hotelier has always kept himself involved with many organisations to enable him to have an interest away from hotel life.
Pat has always been a staunch supporter of the Sandhurst Football Club and a sponsor of the Dragons since 1970.
He was president of Strathdale Maristians Cricket Club for just on 25 years and a charter member of the Rotary Club of Bendigo Sandhurst which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
Now he has set himself a new challenge and tomorrow Pat hosts his first Marong Cup meeting since taking on the role as president of the Marong Racing Club.
“I have had an interest in racing for most of my life and so I was invited to join the race club back in the seventies, Pat said.
“I got on the committee and my role has been mainly with the catering side of the race day.
“We have an enormous number of volunteers who assist us on this day and the profits from the Marong Cup meeting go back to assist the eight catholic primary schools here in Bendigo.
“Obviously we have to contribute towards racing as well but we believe we have got our balance pretty right and we meet our benchmarks and because of our volunteers we can make it a worthwhile fundraising event for our schools,” he said.
“The Marong Racing Club has a great history and cup day is regarded as one of the premier race meetings to be conducted at the Bendigo racecourse and we have forged a very strong link with the Bendigo Jockey Club.
“We believe that we have a different market to the normal racing link.
“Because of this we have a link to our catholic schools and so we are attracting a lot of families to our cup day.
“We provide plenty of activities for the children to become involved with and we firmly believe that is the main reason as to why our racing club is so successful,’’ Pat said.
Tomorrow’s race day provides plenty of racing action on the track.
Then there are the many off-track activities including a 100 strong combined schools choir singing the national anthem before the running of the Marong Cup as well as a special relay race involving all eight catholic primary schools.
For Pat Sheehan, living in Bendigo is something special.
He is proud to call himself a Bendigonian.