JERRABOMBERRA was awarded 'Canberra's best suburb' last week after a number of Jerra residents entered 2CC radio's recent 'Best of Canberra' series and took out the Best Suburb category- despite not being in Canberra.
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A bemused Peter Hyndman, manager of the Jerrabomberra General Store, accepted the award on behalf of the community and told The Queanbeyan Age he was surprised when 2CC dropped by with the trophy last Thursday.
"I didn't even know about it at all. I don't listen to 2CC. But we're happy to accept it on behalf of Jerra," Mr Hyndman said.
2CC program director Peter Davidson said Jerrabomberra was the "standout winner" in the category, and lodged the largest amount of SMS votes on the day.
"We get listeners to SMS us their votes, and quite simply, Jerrabomberra came out on top," Mr Davidson said."And we're certainly not going to exclude areas outside of Canberra, so Queanbeyan and Yass and so on are more than welcome to vote."
The Best of Canberra series has called on 2CC listeners to nominate their favourite local establishments across a range of categories, such as best coffee, best restaurant or best public art.
Mr Davidson said the series has confirmed that the station's listeners are a diverse bunch, and spread across the capital region.
"It's certainly showed up quite a wide and varied taste in the region ... it's just a good way of generating a bit of debate about where we live essentially," he said.
However local Queanbeyan identity and cafe owner Frank Bresnik has thrown a cat among the pigeons by pointing out that Jerrabomberra is actually a suburb of Queanbeyan, although he said some Jerra residents may not believe it .
"The majority of people who moved to Jerra in the first instance have always seen themselves as part of Queanbeyan. It's the Johnny-come-latelys who don't think of themselves like that," Mr Bresnik said.
"There will be a couple of them who will have their noses out of joint just being mentioned in the same sentence as Queanbeyan."
However Mr Bresnik agreed that Jerrabomberra was a "nice place" which was enthusiastically backed up by Jerrabomberra Residents' Association president Michael Ziebell.
"Everyone I talk to who lives there loves living there," Mr Ziebell said.
"They love the aspect that it's out of the way and it's got a nice feel about it. People are generally friendly there, and you can stop and talk to people and things like that."
