A Shared Hope
From the speech of the book launch on 15th November 2020, by Daina Pocius. South Australia is the state of Lithuanian firsts; the first newspaper, the first theatre group, the first and only museum and archives, and the first soccer team, just to name a few. We have a lot to be proud of and celebrate. As someone who grew up with four Lithuanian grandparents and in the community, I was surprised that, there was a lot of history, I didn’t know. I knew Lithuanians love basketball and we have had basketball teams since 1949, but I didn’t know how good they were. T he Vytis Club began playing in in C grade and they outclassed all their opponents so effortlessly to win the premiership that next year the team applied and was admitted to the A grade. The very first rounds in 1950, showed that the Vytis boys even outclass some of the A grade team. I didn’t know that in 1958, Juozas Baciunas, President of the World Lithuanians Community visited Adelaide with his wi...
