Now, they are following in Mrs Austin's footsteps and inspiring a new generation.
Mrs Keno established Giant Leaps Speech, offering specialist speech and drama classes and speech therapy, after returning to her hometown with her husband and four small children three years ago.
She has been happily surprised by the demand in ''little Oamaru''.
In just three years, Mrs Keno has built up a client base of more than 150 pupils in the Oamaru area and is now expanding to fill the demand in Timaru, with clients travelling from as far as Geraldine and Palmerston for lessons.
''I think it just grew in response to the demand for speech therapy because our public system is probably never going to provide kids with what they need, and speech therapy and speech and drama teaching just complemented each other.''
Mrs McNally, with an extensive theatrical background, joined as a speech and drama teacher a year ago.
Both say speech and drama and public speaking helped them to develop confidence, self-esteem, creativity, leadership and communication skills.
Confidence was the most common reason for referrals.
''I have a lot of parents that say to me `I wish I did this when I was young, so I want to give my child the opportunity','' Mrs Keno said.
Most of the speech and drama and public speaking lessons are taken in groups of four to six pupils.
That could be challenging for some children, but the benefits were ''huge''.
''You're including kids with common goals, in a really safe learning environment. They see other kids doing, really naturally, what they have probably been scared to do.''
A lot of their work is in schools, as itinerant teachers in North Otago and now South Canterbury.
Mrs Keno provides assessment, diagnosis and treatment for a range of communication difficulties such as unclear speech, hearing impairments, voice disorders, anxiety disorders, fluency difficulties, oral-motor/swallowing difficulties, autism and developmental delays.
Speech and drama lessons often followed speech therapy.
She encouraged starting to learn speech and drama young.
''The earlier a child is exposed, the earlier it's normalised - if you instil communication skills and confidence from a young age, it's just what they know.''
Their passion for teaching stemmed from seeing the changes in people taking part.
''It's really quite rewarding when a parent will say `I just can't believe the difference already','' Mrs Keno said.
''It is a great feeling to know that we are giving young people the confidence and skills they need to communicate effectively and to succeed in life.''
