Ken Moran

Moran was born in the Queensland town of Beaudesert on 27 February 1925,[1] the sixth of eight children of Tom and Johanna Moran.[1] He grew up on the family farm during the Great Depression, and had a busy and active young life which included farm duties, schooling and playing tennis and cricket.[1] At age 14, he left school to work full-time on the farm to help support his family during the difficult economic times.[1] While playing a representative cricket match in February 1945, he experienced serious physical symptoms - a sudden but lasting dizziness, loss of balance and inability to focus - that forced him to retire from the match.[1] Within a couple of days, he was diagnosed with polio and spent the next two years in a polio ward at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. When he was finally discharged, he spent a year with an uncle in Brisbane, managing his own rehabilitation and transition to life in a wheelchair before returning to Beaudesert.[1] He studied accounting by correspondence and worked in the field, and began a lifelong involvement in community work.[1]

Moran took up table tennis and lawn bowls to keep active, playing against and alongside able-bodied players. He won a bronze medal in table tennis at the 1974 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in Dunedin, New Zealand.[1] He won a silver medal in the men's lawn bowls pairs with Wayne Lewis at the 1984 New York/Stoke Mandeville Paralympics.[2]

In the Queen's Birthday Honours 1986 Moran was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire for service to the community and paraplegic sport.[3][4] On 16 September 2010, the Ken Moran Life Centre was officially opened in Beaudesert.[5]