Tutor Tom Holden awarded OAM

U3A Tutor in the Russian language, Tom (Thomas) Holden has been honoured at this year’s Australia Day awards with the Medal of the Order of Australia, for service to the community of the Sunshine Coast.

“We are proud that one of our finest and long serving tutors at U3A Sunshine Coast has been honoured in this way,” President Glyni Cumming said.

“Tom also had a fascinating career with the Royal Australian Navy, where along with many other skills, he studied Russian, which he now teaches at Sunshine Coast, and he is a recipient of the United Nations Service Medal. He has been involved with Legacy Sunshine Coast since 2019, is a parishioner and choir member at St Mark’s Buderim, and has been a tutor with U3A for many years.”

Numerous U3A members have attended his beginners course in the language of Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky

Photo: Tom Holden OAM at his home in Buderim.