Journalist Tom O'Callaghan picks five stories from 2018

Here are just a few of the stories that have stood out to me in 2018.

Maureen Braddy and Allan Whyte disappeared on November 23, 1968 after leaving a dance at the YMCA Hall on Mundy Street.

A coroner in 2014 said their sudden, unprepared disappearances “indicated the existence of foul play”.

A group of Maureen’s family members and their friends are reexamining the case.

Meanwhile, an online petition started by Colin Clayton Norton-Doidge, a friend of Allan’s brother Kevin, is steadily gaining momentum.

The petition pressures decision makers to open a blocked up well and mineshaft where they believe vital evidence might be hidden.

Authorities have so far declined to dig, citing a lack of evidence.

Read more here.

In May this year Ravenswood residents voiced frustrations about a rest stop on the Calder Highway, fearing that without noise barriers neighbours could be kept awake by trucks’ brakes.

Requests for the sound barrier came during a two-year process for the Ravenswood interchange which included relocating driveways off of the Calder.

Some residents feared property devaluation from noise pollution, including Shane Hartland.

“At the end of the day, you won’t be able to live in that area if they put a truck stop in with air brakes,” he said.

“No-one will be able to sleep.”

Read more here.

More:

In May paramedics voiced their anger and disappointment after two women who assaulted a paramedic avoided jail time.

In Bendigo and across the state they marked their ambulances with #itsneverok messages in protest.

Bendigo paramedic Roger Dark was shattered for colleagues injured on the job.

“And I was shattered for our profession as well. It was a dreadful, dreadful outcome,” he said.

The decision prompted politicians to vow to change the law.

Read more here.

As Bendigo’s boundaries expand animals’ worlds are being turned away from their traditional stomping, or slithering, grounds.

They are not necessarily heading for the bush, so Bendigo residents are sharing their new neighbourhoods with wildlife.

Kangaroos and snakes can often find their way back to the bush, but others are not so lucky.

Read more here.

They are not likely, it turns out.

But a maths lecturer “finally” found a use for probability, so who knows what is possible?

The Bendigo public lecture came at the height of the US mid-term election campaign and was a chance for UNSW Canberra’s Dr Tim Trudgian not only to delve into the controversial president’s world, but to unmask the complexities of online betting markets overselling the likelihood of an impeachment.

Read the story here.

Have you signed up to the Bendigo Advertiser's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in central Victoria.