AS a girl she won a bus trip to Mildura for her family and as a professional educator she achieved great respect across Australia and internationally for her work in occupational therapy.
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Life took Colleen Mullavey O'Byrne from growing up in the village of Mullengandra near the Hume Highway to being an associate professor at Sydney University and an innovator for her profession.
Professor Anne Cusick, who oversees occupational therapy at Sydney University, lauded the pivotal role played by her former teacher and workmate who died on June 13 at the age of 84.
"Colleen was absolutely critical to the transition from the diploma and college situation through to undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD teaching in a university setting," Professor Cusick said.
"Her 40 to 45 year career spanned that period of dramatic educational change and she was a teacher and academic leader in that."
The oldest of three sisters, young Colleen grew up at Mullengandra, attending the local public school before attending high school in Albury and earning a scholarship to study in Sydney after finishing in the top five per cent in NSW for the 1954 leaving certificate.
In the 1940s her writing to The Albury Banner earned her a family holiday to Mildura aboard a Murray Valley Coaches service.
At the time she completed her OT diploma in Sydney, Associate Professor Mullavey O'Byrne was among only around 20 graduates from NSW's only course.
Now 23 universities across Australia have courses, including the Albury campus of Charles Sturt University.
Inaugural course co-ordinator Lynne Adamson said Associate Professor Mullavey O'Byrne was a member of an advisory committee at the outset in 1994 and was a role model for staff and students.
"I think having Colleen's support really showed this was going to be a credible program," Dr Adamson said.
Professor Cusick said Associate Professor Mullavey O'Byrne took an "inclusive and collegial" approach to Sydney University having competition in the belief the profession overall would thrive from such an outlook.
Associate Professor Mullavey O'Byrne ran courses at Cumberland College before it was incorporated into Sydney University and became the first head of its school of OT and then associate professor in the faculty of health sciences.
American anthropologist Maureen Fitzgerald was drawn to work with her after they met in Hawaii.
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"She was very highly respected for the fact she supported people, she understood people and where they could go," Dr Fitzgerald said.
"You would find there's hundreds of OTs not just in Australia but around the world who would say she was instrumental to their work."
Associate Professor Mullavey O'Byrne lent her expertise to courses in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Thailand and Hawaii.
She lived with her son Ben Westall in a property she bought in the suburb of Bronte as a single mum for $14,000 in 1974.
"By the time I was 15 I used to joke I had a degree in OT already because she was always bouncing things off me," Mr Westall said.
A funeral for Associate Professor Mullavey O'Byrne was held at Randwick's Sacred Heart Catholic Church on June 25.
She is survived by her two sisters, son and two grandchildren.
