WE conclude our look back at the top stories in Ceredigion and Montgomeryshire with the second half of the year.

You can catch up on the first part of our year in review here.

July

• A Cardigan teenager told of the “best moment of her life” when she was crowned the UK’s first ever transgender school prom queen.

Inspirational Lori Beynon, 16, was astonished when her classmates at Cardigan Secondary School voted her to be this year’s Prom Queen at their end-of-school dance.

• An Aberystwyth couple were at their wits’ end when a student neighbour parked his car on their driveway for the summer and headed home to China.

Tom and Julia Ebenezer, of Glan Rheidol, Llanbadarn Fawr, said they came home one day to discover a black Citroën had been left on their drive without their permission. To add insult to injury, there was also a note asking the couple to look after a cactus plant!

• Llanybydder student Elin Hughes became the envy of all Coldplay fans when she was chosen to sing the Welsh national anthem at the band’s sellout concert in Cardiff.August• The landlady of a Synod Inn pub spoke of her shock at finding a crashed car buried in the front of the inn in the early hours of Saturday, 19 August.Jill Evans, who runs the 500-year-old Synod Inn near New Quay was awoken by a call from a friend who had come across the crash scene at 3am.• An Aberystwyth shopkeeper was shocked when one of the UK’s most popular comedians strolled in.Michael Joseph Pennington, better known as Johnny Vegas, was visiting Ceredigion to make an appearance in a New Quay shop before heading up to Aberystwyth’s Coastal Vintage shop on Bridge Street.• A new £7m railway station and transport hub for Bow Street got the go-ahead. The UK Government announced it would put £3.95m towards the project, which will cost £6.76m in total, under its New Stations Fund.September• Almost 500 Aberystwyth’s Ysgol Penglais were reportedly put in detention on the first day of term after falling foul of a strict new uniform policy.• The Queen’s Baton Relay visited Llanidloes ahead of next year’s Commonwealth Games in Australia. The baton visited the town, along with Llandinam and Rhayader, on Thursday, 7 September, as part of a four-day tour of Wales.• A 45-strong German contingent spent a weekend in Aberystwyth to celebrate 20 years of twinning. The relationship between Aberystwyth and Kronberg goes back almost 50 years, but this year’s 20th anniversary of official twinning between the two towns saw two reciprocal visits.October• A tea party was organised by local customers of the NatWest in Machynlleth to thank staff for all their hard work and the tea party took place at Caffi Alys. The bank closed on 12 October.• A campaign was launched to halt the downgrading of New Quay’s current Mersey-class all-weather lifeboat to a smaller Atlantic 85 inshore lifeboat (B class).• Ceredigion’s coastline took a battering from Storm Brian.November• A Lampeter couple who’ve been the local organisers of the BBC’s Children in Need campaign for decades stepped aside in their 35th year of fundraising - and after reaching their £1m target.Beti and Goronwy Evans started raising money for the charity in the early 1980s but say that this year will be their last in charge.• The death of two lynx belonging to Borth Wild Animal Kingdom led to calls for the zoo to be closed.• A battle to keep Aberystwyth’s Bodlondeb care home open was lost after an 11th-hour bid to save it from closure failed.December• Schools across parts of Ceredigion and Powys closed when snow hit.Roads, bus, rail and waste collection services were also affected by the weather.The A44 between Aberystwyth and Llangurig was closed for over six hours when a foot of snow fell on higher ground.• A bronze tree-like art sculpture will not be installed at Borth beach after councillors narrowly voted to oppose the application.• NatWest's decision to axe branches in Lampeter and Cardigan sparked outrage.