ASHBURTON NOMINATION

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31001, 5 March 1966, Page 14

ASHBURTON NOMINATION

sth Contender Announced

Mr R. E. Buick, of Mount Somers, who is chairman of the Ashburton County Council, agreed last evening, to accept nomination for selection as the National Party candidate for the Ashburton Electorate at the General Election this year.

Four other candidates are already in the field. Nominations will close on March 14 and the selection committee, which will be representative of every branch of the party in the electorate, is likely to meet within a few weeks after nominations close.

A meeting of 31 members of the National Party representing a cross section of town and country interests considered a list of prospective candidates on Thursday evening and decided to ask Mr Buick to accept nomination. A deputation from that meeting obtained Mr Buick’s consent last evening. Mr Buick, who is 47, has a family of four. He was born at Oamaru, and has been farming at Mount Somers since 1944. He was in the Army for more than four vears in World War II and was wounded in action. He gained a commission in the field and was awarded the Military Medal for bravery during a night attack at Miteiriya Ridge in Egypt in 1942. Since living at Mount Somers, Mr Buick was first elected to the Ashburton County Council from 1953 to 1959 and he returned to the council in 1962. This is his third year as chairman. He is a member of the South Island Land Development Committee, the executive of the South Island Local Bodies’ Association, the District Combined Nassella Coordinating Committee, Ward 12 of the New Zealand Counties’ Association, Canterbury Patriotic Fund Council and Ashburton College Board. He is a former president of the Alford Branch of the R.S.A. and has been a member of the Springburn School Committee for many years.