In 1944, while travelling to Alice Springs, Adelaide Miethke thought to use the Royal Flying Doctor Service's two-way radio to give informative talks to outback children.
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The idea, which came to be known as the School of the Air, was a matter of "bridging the lonely distance".
That's something Wimmera residents have had to do a lot of this year, during a pandemic, and Miethke's story has inspired one young Horsham resident to make a podcast episode about her.
Holy Trinity year four student Ellua Boyd created the episode as an entry to the ABC's "Fierce Girls" competition. She was one of several winners, and her episode went live last week.
Ellua, 10, said she began researching people making long-distance connections when she started remote learning.
"I found Adelaide Miethke," she said. "I found it interesting her father was a teacher and how she got the idea to create the School of the Air.
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"My dad found out about the competition and put some episodes up on the iPad so me and my sister Lydika could listen. We really enjoyed them so he uploaded some more."
Ellua said the podcast, recorded on her mother's phone, took a lot of preparation to make.
"We used a room that was close to the wi-fi, and we had to turn the air-conditioning and heaters off," she said.
Ellua said remote learning had been hard for her because she hadn't been able to see her friends, including for her birthday in May.
"It's hard looking at a screen the whole time," she said.
"I found out about podcasts in prep, and I really enjoyed them because I didn't have to watch screens.
"I really like the podcast episodes about (tennis player) Ash Barty and (female bushranger) Mary Ann Bugg."
Ellua one day hopes to be a journalist or a marine biologist.
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