This is the story that should not be written, not for another 30, or 40, or more years.
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But it is the story that must now be told.
Making it one of the saddest I have ever been asked to write.
And the saddest to read for so many, many people who knew Trent Horneman as someone they loved, as a colleague, as a mate.
This is a story about one of the happiest people I ever knew, someone who was genuinely, unashamedly, just happy being happy.
Trent was one of the first two or three people I met when I joined this paper in August 2014.
He was one of those rarer people you come across, he was immediately likeable and simply got more likeable as time went on.
For me, finding my feet in a new community, he was also an amazing asset — Trent knew everybody and just about everything they were doing, had done or might even have been thinking about trying at any time in the future. On the odd occasion he didn’t know, give him an hour and he would find out.
Most of all though, the thing that set Trent apart was he cared about people. He would genuinely listen, loved meeting new people and loved hearing their stories and remembered them all.
Just about the perfect resume for a journo and someone working behind a bar. Both of which he was. Frequently at the same time.
The news last weekend of Trent’s death swept through Echuca-Moama within hours. My phone ran hot that night with not just local calls, but from Melbourne and interstate.
No-one could comprehend it, absolutely no-one wanted to believe it, and now we all have to try and cope with it, each in our own way.
None of which will come remotely close to what Trent’s wife Nacole, and their children Tyler and Laura, are dealing with this week, and will be for a long time to come.
For them, this is beyond sad. For them this is their sudden and stark new reality, and all our thoughts are with them.
While at the Riv, Trent loved the thrill of the chase, talking to people, always hunting the scoop.
He was pivotal in some of the paper’s biggest stories of the past decade, and was the one who got the first break in the 2017 murder on the Murray story, which would become a Quill winner — the industry’s pinnacle Victorian achievement.
As police roundsman, he scooped everyone in a double drug shooting in Moama, on the local government round he covered the disruption of Murray Shire Council’s forced amalgamation and the long-running saga of Campaspe Shire’s mismanagement of the Port of Echuca.
And he breathed sport, bled racing and, not surprisingly, loved a punt.
His stories of big wins were legend (but more infrequent than he would have liked) and improved with every retelling.
Whenever and whatever was needed, he could smash something out in a hurry — but when it wasn’t critically urgent, he also had Trent-time for when the story might eventually appear.
Then, when everyone else knocked off on a Friday night, Trent’s day still had a long way to go as he headed to the pub, where he would be on the other side of the bar serving them drinks.
And be back there again at the weekend — working long and hard to help secure his family’s future.
Trent built his career the old-fashioned way.
He got his foot in the door as a teenager, working after school with the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin.
Not as a cadet journalist, not as any kind of journalist. Instead, Trent was helping plate the pages — cutting the editorial copy and the ads on to single pages so they could be sent to the presses in Shepparton.
He later moved into the editorial department, before making the move from the Pastoral Times, heading just down the road to the Riv Herald as a cadet journalist.
After a few years, it was time for a change, and he headed to the Mallee region, working in Horsham before popping up at the Riv as the character and fount of local knowledge he would become.
And he was a character, a true larrikin. The master of the immediate one-liner which would have people in stitches. Just as he was the master of taking a rise out of colleagues when he went one better on a story.
From the paper, Trent would go into radio and then into marketing/promotional roles in the local hospitality industry before arriving at Rich River Golf Club, where this Mr Likeable fitted in perfectly. Particularly as he took up golf and showed some real flair.
Trent’s personal journey has always been entertaining. He always had a plan and a dream, and he always had time — for us all.
This likeable rogue leaves a hole in my life, and I will miss bumping into him, getting that cheeky little grin and his “what’s happening?”
I will miss his latest funny, I know he will miss seeing how far his beloved Blues might go this season.
Trent died at work on Saturday night. He was just 41. On the Wednesday before, he had sent me a text with a collectable he had seen for sale on a community page and knew I would really love to have — because that’s what Trent did, he remembered.
I did love it, but told him I was too poor to pay the price they were asking.
But not as poor as I am, we all are, today.
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