THE Spirit of Anzac centenary exhibition has engaged 15,000 patrons in Wodonga, including a 102-year-old woman.
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The numbers attending the Sports and Leisure Centre outdid expectations and delighted retired brigadier Alison Creagh, who is supervising the travelling display.
"We've had around 15,000 people from the region go through," Ms Creagh said on Friday at a wreath-laying at Wodonga's cenotaph to mark the closure of the exhibition.
"We think the oldest person to see it was around 102 and we know we had many young people of all ages, so we're really excited to have had such a successful launch here.
"It was about what we were expecting and hoping for, a little bit better than what we were hoping for to be honest, really everyone's got behind us, it's been terrific."
Ms Creagh said a number of visitors had travelled for the show.
"We've had people come from Bacchus Marsh and Melbourne, we know we've had people come from Sydney, we know that people have come from all around the region," she said.
"We know we had some people from Queensland as well."
The $35 million Australian War Memorial exhibition, which involved 400 people working on its production and 40 on its installation, impressed Wodonga Mayor Rodney Wangman and Wodonga RSL president Kevyn Williams.
"It's achieved what I wanted it to achieve in terms of delivering a great exhibition, but also more importantly a reflection of what Anzac and what this centenary reminds us about our community and the sacrifice that was given by people who lost their lives and those that remained at home," Cr Wangman said.
Mr Williams said it was a phenomenal presentation.
"I'm just so glad it came to this town," Mr Williams said.
"It's opened the eyes up of a lot of people to the sacrifices that were made during World War I."
Cr Wangman said he had been particularly touched by the sight of a shellshocked soldier and accompanying recorded comments.
"It really brought it home as to what it would have been like for those very young boys, 15, 16, 17 year-olds, that were...plucked out of a place like Australia, out of place like Wodonga a hundred years ago, to have gone halfway around the world and to have been put in such circumstances of mud, noise, smoke, gas, death," he said.
![Tribute: Mayor Rodney Wangman, Spirit of Anzac executive director Alison Creagh and Wodonga RSL president Kevyn Williams lay a wreath. Picture: ELENOR TEDENBORG Tribute: Mayor Rodney Wangman, Spirit of Anzac executive director Alison Creagh and Wodonga RSL president Kevyn Williams lay a wreath. Picture: ELENOR TEDENBORG](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/XJLgPnEdnKaFugZzKyL6Sw/71ffa044-8fba-46aa-a6db-ae1c36f15767.jpg/r1107_126_3384_3151_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)