After a heartwarming show of support and dedication from our Burgmann community last year, the Harriet Nixon Scholarship Scholarship raised $159,000. We invite you to join us in welcoming our inaugural Harriet Nixon Scholar, Evelyn 'Evie' Tilley. We asked Evelyn to share her story about coming to Burgmann College, and she wrote the following letter to our community.
I was born in Warwick, Queensland, however I moved to Hanhdorf, South Australia when I was around four years old. We lived in Hanhdorf until I was seven, then we moved up to our farm ‘Anama’ at Booborowie, around 2.5 hours north of Adelaide.
One of the primary schools I attended, Booborowie Primary School, was incredibly small. By the time I was in Year 3 there were only 12 students from Reception to Year 7.
Because there were so few students, there was no need for any high-tech sound system, so instead of an automatic bell to sound the end of recess and lunch, all of us kids would fight over who would get to ring the bell to call everyone in.
Because the town was so small, the primary school would walk down the road to the Booborowie Town Pool (which is unfortunately now empty), which had absolutely no heating system, and even during the hottest days of the South Australian summer would be at the most one degree off freezing.
Booborowie also has quite a large elderly population, and therefore one of the main attractions within the town is the Bowling Club. During summer, every second Saturday the club would host 'Bowlo Night', and you would have to bring a salad or a dessert to the club and that is where you would meet everyone in the town again. There was a playground across the road, and all of the kids would go across to play.
Being a town which was not entirely modern, the playground equipment was most definitely not up to the OHS standards of today’s era. The slide was so steep and high that if you leant a tad too far forward you would roll down, and if you didn’t grab the sides (which were two-inch-wide metal pipes) right before you got off, you would get splinters the size of your fist.
But I had so much fun.
I remember going up to the hills as family during winter to move sheep, and it being so cold and windy that we would wear a ridiculous amount of woolen items, but mum would bring Monte Carlos and flask of tea every single time, and we would all sit along a stone fence which ran all the way through the valley, and we would have the same conversation every single time about how long and tiring it must have been to cart all this rock up the hills all the way from Mintaro.
While Booborowie isn’t a wine region, where I went to high school, the Clare Valley, was mainly a viticulture town. So, in the weeks prior to vintage, all the kids that lived in the vineyards would bring plastic bags of some of the smallest and most sour grapes you have ever had the displeasure of tasting. But we would always eat them all, and after every recess and lunch the entire class would have the most uncomfortable stomach aches.
This tradition continued well into high school—if anything, it increased. Clare High School had a vineyard of its own, and during vintage we would have to get to school at 4.30 AM to pick grapes, with the teachers walking behind us telling us off if we were moving too slow or if we were missing any.
I remember learning to drive manual and stalling up a hill, and having to call on the two-way radio for instructions on how to do a hill start, and hearing the laughs from other people on the same channel.
The most vivid memory of working on the farm was when I used to get sent out to tag hay bales. When you are selling hay, each bale has to have the farm name and a barcode, so you get a bale prod—or in our case, the longest screwdriver on the property—and push the yellow tag into the hay.
I remember there was one day, where it would have had to be at least 42 degrees, and I was standing out in middle of a paddock on the top of a hill, not one tree in sight. My dad would drive past in the telehandler, which would like to send up a wall of red dust, and then dump the bale right next to me, which would cover me in bits of hay. Just thinking about it now makes me itch, and I swear I had straw shaped bumps on my skin for days.
I have two brothers, John (16) and Patrick (12), and my mum Kirsty and father Leith. My youngest brother has Neurofibromatosis, which is a condition which causes tumours to grow on his nerves, and because of this he is completely blind.
My dad comes from a family with a long farming history. He was born on a farm in Kapunda (one of the most haunted towns in Australia, if you are interested in that kind of thing). My dad works on the family farm with my uncle and grandpa. My mum is originally from New South Wales and made the big sacrifice to come South Australia so dad could come back to farm. She is a Child & Family Health Nurse, which means she visits families shortly after they have given birth. With the family, we run a mixed farming set up, which means we shear and slaughter sheep along with growing crops such as wheat, barley and canola.
I could not tell you exactly when I decided to go to ANU. As someone who always wanted to work in the public service, it felt like the natural progression to move straight to Canberra. I applied for early entry into ANU and I received an offer, which I accepted instantly. University has always been a goal and a dream for me, so to get that email was one of the most exciting days of my life.
To be honest, it felt like I was meant to be at Burgmann. In the beginning of Year 12 I stayed in Burgmann College for a week for the National Youth Science Forum, and I had the most amazing time. I loved the campus, I loved the dining hall and the decorations on the walls—it just felt like a great environment.
So, when my family found ourselves in Canberra over the winter holidays, I went back to Burgmann for a tour. I had Burgmann’s then O-Week Chair and the 2025 BRA President Charley Ellwood as my tour guide, and it turned out that of the hundreds of rooms in the College, he was in the exact same room that I had stayed in earlier in the year.
Topping off the experience, I was able to meet all of the staff at morning tea and I had one of the best muffins I had ever had. To me, Burgmann just fell into place, and I am so grateful that I made the decision to apply, because it has been one of the best experiences.
Since arriving at Burgmann, I've found that my favourite part hasn’t necessarily been the activities. While I have absolutely loved the activities I have been a part of so far, my favourite moments haven’t been the events, or the parties or sports. Coming from Booborowie, it was never easy to have friends around, you couldn’t just walk down and grab a coffee or go to the movies or go shopping, everything had to be meticulously planned. So some of my favourite moments so far has been as simple as sitting in convo or having a good chat at dinner.
I love the people that I am surrounded with at Burgmann—I love the community I have here. The opportunity to just walk down the street and grab a coffee with someone when I feel like it, or to go the library and pretend like I am studying, or just decide on the fly to go kick the footy on the Oval—these aren’t opportunities I'm used to. So far, these are the moments I have enjoyed the most and I will continue to treasure.
I'm studying a Bachelor of International Security Studies and plan to pursue a career in the public service, because I've always found the news incredibly interesting, particularly the foreign affairs section. I would, and continue to still, spend hours scrolling the Apple News app. And while I decided very early on that I didn’t want to be a journalist, it took me a lot longer to decide on what I actually wanted to do.
I have always been incredibly interested in learning. I could watch any documentary; I could listen to any TED Talk. Even if I had no background in something, I just find new things incredibly fascinating; the idea of not understanding something. I will be obsessed with it to the point where I feel a physical buzz in my head.
To me, the appeal of working in Foreign Affairs, Trade and Security sectors is that everything is always changing. There are so many factors: cultural, economic, individual, religious; factors which I will never fully understand, and that is where my excitement lies.
I loved growing up in a rural area, and I will always be incredibly grateful to my parents for making the decision to come back to the farm. Without a doubt, it has made me a more hardworking and well-rounded person and given me experiences in life which I just could not have got anywhere else.
But I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t work hard to get here today, to get into ANU, to get into Burgmann. I took every opportunity I was given, I did as much as I possibly could for myself and for my school but in the back of my mind, I was certain that it was never going to be enough.
The moments that I am proud of within my own life look quite different to a lot of the other students at Burgmann, and it is hard not compare your own experiences to those around you. But the beauty of scholarships for rural, regional and remote students is that it recognises that successes within these communities may look different, that we are all provided with different opportunities.
Even with the support of the Harriet Nixon Scholarship, my family are working incredibly hard to send me to Burgmann. But it isn’t an option for a lot of rural, regional and remote families. There are kids from areas like mine who have incredible potential, but due to a multitude of reasons, whether it be financial or familiar, aren’t able to succeed in the ways that they would be able if their circumstances were different, and aren’t able to branch out into a community such as Burgmann.
I believe that every rural student should feel that they are able to achieve their dreams, and for a lot of rural kids, that can only happen with the support of the broader community.
To all the donors of the Harriet Nixon Scholarship, I am so incredibly grateful for your support. Knowing that there are people out there, across Australia, either that went to Burgmann or didn’t, who knew the Harriet and the Nixon family or didn’t, or are from regional areas or not, who were willing to donate money to support students like me is such an incredible feeling. Your support and generosity will never be lost on me.
And words cannot describe how incredibly fortunate I am to have the relationship and support from Fiona and the Nixon family. I have been so lucky to see Fiona every time she is up to Burgmann, which lucky for me is almost every second week. Fiona is one of the most supportive, intelligent and kind women I have ever met, and the Burgmann community, students and staff alike, are incredibly lucky to have her.
The time, the effort and the sacrifice that Fiona and the Nixon family have put into the Burgmann community, not only through the Harriet Nixon Scholarship, is an effort which has helped my family, and so many future rural families.
I feel it is incredibly inspiring, gratifying and humbling to know that by giving to a beautiful scholarship you can change the trajectory of a person's life.
– Fiona Nixon
Every time I wake up at Burgmann, or I walk back after a class, or I lose my ASA card and I have to go to Reception, I remember how grateful I am to be here. To every member of the Nixon family, every donor, and every staff member who allowed me to get where I am today, to support me to be a part of this community, I will always be endlessly grateful. Thank you.
- Evelyn 'Evie' Tilley
Inaugural Harriet Nixon Scholar
