"I'm very surprised and very honoured," says the former allrounder who says HBCA president Harry Findlay "made matters worse" at the AGM last Wednesday night when he turned around to look at the wall at other life members' photos.
"I felt out of my depth besides those people there although I had a crack at Harry afterwards that I was too young to be there."
Graham was a member of the HB Women's committee at the age of 15 but at 21 she became the female representative when the two sexes merged.
"Even at the height of playing I was an administrator the whole time," says the grinning former Central Districts Hinds cricketer.
"Mucking in" to raise funds for women in the pre-merger era was the norm.
"They needed people to lead in so I got appointed to the job from a very young age.
"That's when Cath, Janet and Judy ran it for almost 20 years."
Graham is mindful even contemporary women cricketers won't have an inkling of the three stalwarts.
"To an extent I'd be more than happy to say I'm taking this life membership on their behalf.
"I guess it was a 30-year drift compared with their 20-year set up.
"When the transition occurred they just handed it over so not everyone saw or knew what the other women had done."
For those who know Graham, her selfless act of voluntary service from the eighties to 2010 doesn't come as a surprise at all.
With 922 runs and 98 wickets for the Hinds in 85 appearances, the filing administrator at the Eastern Districts Police HQ in Hastings seldom flinched when asked to pick up gear or young players on weekends.
She somewhat instinctively gifted helmets, gloves and pads to those who couldn't afford to buy new gear, never mind imparting cricketing skills.
"Cricket is a passion. It's never just a job," she says, quite often hearing people remarking on the likes of HBCA chief executive Craig Findlay and women's development officer, Abby Burrows, "do it because it's their job".
People often identify with that passion in Graham and she attests to that: "It is a little about me, too".
That self-effacing persona takes hold again as she emphasises the importance of her family in her cricketing endeavours.
Her parents, Philip and the late Rosemary Schmidt, and siblings Barbara (Melbourne), Blair (Wellington) and Derek (Auckland) were all pivotal to a sister born in Wairoa before moving to Nuhaka where the father served as a police officer.
Graham settled in Napier with her husband although the couple lived, for several years, in Waipukurau where they made bats for Laver and Wood.
The Grahams played cricket for Hatherley and Reddings Cricket Club in the Cheltenham and Gloucestershire leagues in 1994.
Ironically, they were told the English establishment had a women's club but that had folded a year before so Graham ended up playing for the four men's teams.
It was compulsory for all teams to have managers and scorers.
"That was the making of me as a batsman because until then I was just a bowler," she reveals of the injury-enforced decision.
"The guys would bowl me pies because I was a girl but I got a reputation for hitting sixes so halfway through the season they realised I was good and started bowling normally."
In fact, husband Marty pipped her in the batting averages department with an unbeaten 50 in the last game that summer.
She played most games for the thirds team, twice for the seconds and once for the first.
On returning to the Bay, she commanded the role of Hinds allrounder in selectors' eyes.
"Marty's my biggest supporter. I couldn't have done half of it without him."
In some respects, Graham feels she has been "absolutely spoilt all my life".
That includes coaches and players who went out of their way to look, guide and offer positive reinforcement "so why not stay and help in cricket".
She fondly recalls the crazy, hazy days of summer when the women had four teams in the Bay but impresses that's when the men's stocks had also doubled, thus females were a by-product of that boom-and-bust phase.
"We used to be worried we'd lose kids from high school now we're losing them at intermediate schools," she says, suspecting it's the same trend with boys.
Regrettably, she cannot enlighten fans on Bay women's representative performers of the yesteryear.
"The complete and utter history of the scoreboards, newspaper clippings and all that went to the dogs, when they moved from the old building [where the toilet blocks are now] to RC McInnes Pavilion six to seven years ago."
Causing more personal heartache is the loss of two personal folders of facts and figures, which disappeared after they were handed to HBCA five years ago.
Suffice it to say she represented Bay senior women in the days when they played up to 15 matches preseason through the interdistrict tournament before domestic cricket with the Hinds kicked in.
"I used to get exemptions to play for the Bay despite having too many caps for CD," she says with a grin.
Oh, for the record, "it was all a set-up" last Wednesday night because she thought she was simply going to another AGM.
"I wasn't going to go because I was having a tiring evening, having worked all day and the weather was horrible so I just wanted to blob out in front of the TV at home."
Marty, who was in on the act, talked her out of it.
