Alumnus Sarah Benaud has turned a diverse career background, including 20 years in the 'rag trade', into a promising teaching career, after topping her Bachelor of Learning Management degree cohort (Secondary/Vocational Education and Training) at Noosa.

Currently a Hospitality and Tourism teacher at Tully State High in Far North Queensland, Sarah has achieved a Business Liason Association special award for her contribution to vocational training and is a finalist in the Queensland College of Teachers Excellence in Teaching (Beginner Teacher) awards.

Graduate and teaching excellence awards finalist Sarah Benaud

Sarah grew up in NSW and left school in Year 10 to become a fashion designer and pattern maker. She got married, had a child and moved to Noosa where she developed her own business as a clothing manufacturer.

Other roles included work as a customer service manager, part-time admin at the ENERGEX Helicopter Rescue and kitchen-hand/cook duties for the Spirit House and House With No Steps charities.

Over the years, Sarah has also won numerous local awards for exhibiting her pastel artworks. She's also had the chance to get creative at Mission Beach, working with TV chefs Curtis Stone and Matt Moran while employed as a 'functions' kitchen-hand at Elandra resort.

Sarah says she enjoyed meeting other mature-age students during her BLM degree and got the "fantastic" chance to teach English in Korea.

"The thorough vocational trainiing program has really set me up for teaching in schools," she said.

The adventurous graduate has not settled down just yet. She's become a dirt bike fan and recently travelled to Cape Tribulation and Cape York.

She's still active in the community, working with local restauranters and events coordinators at local functions, giving talks for Rotary, attending Lions meetings and helping out at the surf club kitchen.

Sarah says her arrival in Tully was eventful as her car was "written off by two police officers, different vehicles, in a 20-minute period on the same day" and she also found a taipan snake in her bed on another occasion.

The keen student continues to study Tourism and Hospitality subjects through TAFE and is "committed to ensuring the students who do vocational subjects have real links with industry".

She recommended that Tully's Year 11 and 12 students be able to do their RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) competency so that they have a better chance of employment in the local industry.

"I sold this idea to Rotary who liked (and funded) the idea of all students being educated in RSA for a positive effect on the community."