Anthony Hibbard
Mr Hibbard, as Anthony Hibbard is known by students in high school, is a leader whose passion for mathematics and God inspires those around him.
Anthony Hibbard: the 2014 Homecoming honour year honouree for 1994.
Anthony’s taught at three Seventh-day Adventist schools since graduation. He began at Blue Hills College in Lismore, to which he returned in 2012, becoming head of secondary school a year later, then moved to Macquarie College. But his longest tenure has been at Avondale School, where he is now head of the mathematics faculty. “I love my job,” he says. Anthony finds satisfaction from supporting his students “explore how mathematics can help them make sense of their world. It’s one of God’s love languages.”
Anthony credits his then Avondale College lecturers Kevin de Berg, Malcolm Coulson, Wilf Pinchin and Lynden Rogers for “modelling what it meant to be a passionate Christian educator. I am indebted to them for helping develop in me a love of learning and an empathy for my students.”
The former saw Anthony receive the Dean’s Merit Award for his Master of Education through the University of New England. The latter saw Anthony and wife Lana volunteer as English language teachers and as underground house church missionaries in Zhuhai on the southern coast of Guangdong in China in 2000 and 2001. “We were baptising people in blow-up swimming pools and in hotel bathtubs and bringing Bibles across the border from Macau. They were two of the best years of our lives.”
Other best years were to follow with the birth of Anthony and Lana’s children Tyson, Chloe and Aren.
Anthony, a former student elder and a head elder at Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church, inspires others in their faith journey by putting God first and serving Him rather than self. “My primary goal is to love the Lord with all my heart and to look for opportunities to serve those in my community.”
The class of 1994 honours Anthony Hibbard for his commitment to Seventh-day Adventist education and to the ministry of teaching.—Bianca Reynaud, public relations assistant, Avondale College of Higher Education