Nurse, wool handler, shearer and mental health advocate Carol Mudford is the AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award 2025 winner.
Story Corinna Boldiston Photo Clancy Paine
Lulled by bleating sheep and humming handpieces, baby Carol Mudford often slept in a wool bin as her parents Max and Nina ran their shearing shed at Curban, near Gilgandra, NSW. “We moved off-farm when I was eight to north-east Victoria,” Carol, 39, says. “Sheds are sensory. Linking back to my childhood, when I walked back into a shearing shed as an adult in 2020 – with the smell of wool and the noise of shearing and sheep baas – it felt like coming home.”
The 2025 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award national winner has just walked into her home at Dubbo, wheeling her suitcase after two national events in a week. It’s unlikely many other people travel with shearing gear and sparkly gold heels. Carol’s handpiece and sHedway polo were used at the first stop on her itinerary: the Jamestown Shearing and Wool Handling National Championships, SA. Next stop was the gala event at Parliament House in Canberra, where Carol represented NSW–ACT.
“It will likely take a while to process and settle in,” the founder of grassroots health charity sHedway says of the win. “It was an honour and amazing to see the sHedway story projected on the wall of the Great Hall of Parliament House. And I was honoured to be among the cohort of incredible finalists and alumni of women doing good work for their communities across rural Australia.”
Carol admits she won’t be wearing the gold footwear again in a hurry. “I don’t usually wear heels, so I was mostly worried about tripping up the stairs in my Smitten Merino dress, and was grateful for the rail,” she says, laughing. “My foot muscles and blisters are sorer from the heels than after shearing.”
This story excerpt is from issue #164
Outback Magazine: Dec/Jan 2026
