MEMORIAL GATES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 132, 6 March 1940, Page 5

MEMORIAL GATES

OPENING CEREMONY ON SATURDAY WHAKATANE SPORTSMEN PRESENT Athletes who were competing in the inter-club sports on Saturday, made an impressive sight as they paraded in their club colours at the opening ceremony of the Centennial Memorial Gates at the entrance to Jubilee Park, joining members of the other sports organisations who had made a break in their afternono's recreation for the ceremony. In extending a welcome and his thanks for their attendance to those present, the Mayor of Te Puke, Mr J. Brown, called upon Mr T. Palmer as chairman of the first Te Puke Town Board, to address the assembly. Referring to the erection of the gates as a long-felt want, Mr Palm-, er pointed out the changes which had taken place to Te Puke since its inception as a borough, and referred to the gates, not only as marking a hundred years of progress in the Dominion, bub as a stage in the progress of the town. Continuing, Mr Palmer said that it Was only fitting that such a memorial had been erected at the entrance to the realm of sport where the spirits of friendship was fostered and the people gained that bodily fitness which was so necessary to-day for the defence of the Empire and its ideals. In view of the fact that teams from the Whakatane Bowling Club were visitors to Te Puke, Mr Palmer jocularly refer red to the great pleasure which Whakatane people got cut of their visits to Te Puko with it being so great a contrast as he pointed out, to their own town and surroundings.