Rachel Buchanan of Aursbridge Crescent became the New Recruit Champion of Scotland in the major showjumping event at Chatelherault Country Park in Hamilton.

Rachel, a fourth year student at the Barrhead school, came second in the same contest the previous year and went one better when she defeated a very competitive field on Saturday, July 9, 2005 riding her horse Jack.

Also in July 2005...

MINDLESS thugs who hurled a television out of a third floor window narrowly missed a woman walking underneath.

The stunned passer-by almost collapsed in shock and had to be helped from the scene by a passing motorist.

The driver, who asked not to be named, said the large TV ‘suddenly appeared in the sky’ as he drove into Kerr Street from the Neilston end of Barrhead.

HOUSEHOLDERS were warned to be aware of potential burglars targeting Barrhead addresses.

A Springhill resident was stunned to discover a young man standing in her back garden in broad daylight — claiming to be taking a short-cut.

When challenged, the mystery man claimed he was from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, was lost and trying to find his way to a relative’s home.

CONCERNED staff were worried that Barrhead Resource Centre could be sliced open by a new road.

The Barrhead Adult Resource Action Committee had been frustrated for some years as they have been promised a state-of-the-art building since being moved out of the old St John’s Primary building in Darnley Road.

Initially they were told that the site on ground opposite Barrhead station had a problem due to contaminated soil.

However the centre would eventually get the go ahead, and it is still in use today.

A YOUNG mum and her two children had a miracle escape from a horror fire — for the second time in three months.

She was asleep in her flat when an arsonist struck in the early hours of Sunday, dousing her door with paint which was poured through the letterbox before it was set ablaze.

The first she knew of the fire was when her children began screaming hysterically as thick smoke filled their bedroom.

AUCHENBACK gran Letty Tytler’s student grandson Andrew Gould was the toast of his family AND his fellow graduates and lecturers after landing a top university award.

Andrew, then 24, graduated BSc with first class honours from the world famous Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

And the local brainbox was also awarded the prestigious Pragma Systems (Scotland) Ltd. prize for the best student in fourth year of the computing for internet and multimedia course.

A GROUP of determined local youngsters were to star in a fly-on-the-wall documentary.

The enterprising teenagers from Neilston were set to feature in a one-off programme following their efforts to convert a rundown council home into a community flat.

Programme-makers decided to launch the project after spotting the kids on a BBC Scotland news item.

The Neilston group formed their own junior tenants and residents association in the Glen Madras area of the village in a bid to stamp out anti-social behaviour and improve facilities for people living there.