GUESTS OF HONOUR AT CELEBRATIONS

Taupo Times, Volume 19, Issue 100, 30 December 1970, Page 8

GUESTS OF HONOUR AT CELEBRATIONS

Two young New Zealanders this year's Sir Bernard Fergus: 18-year-old European who w Conservator of the Year" aw£ the Waitangi Trust Board's gi tions at Waitangi on February f They are Robert Tuakana Brown, of Tolaga Bay now a carpentry trainee at Petone, and Stephen Tamatea King, of Auckland, a student. The Minister of Lands, Mr Maclntyre, said he had invited them in his capacity as Administrator of the Waitangi Trust Board as the guests to represent the mingling of the races that the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi recorded. 'He iwi kotahi tatou — we are one people' is how Captain Hobson summed up the meaning of the Treaty as it was being signed," Mr Maclntyre said, "and each year one guest is invited to represent each race at the commemoration, to help keep this thought firmly in all our minds. "This time we have invited two young men who are worthy representatives of their two races, and we are looking forward to having them share with us both the memories of the past and the dedication to the future which is the theme of New Zealand s National Day." Robert Brown is a carpentry trainee under the Maori Affairs Department Trade Training Scheme. He is now head boy of the Maori apprentices, trade trainees and pre-employment workers at the Trentham hostel. Not only is he captain of his rugby grade and a good allround sportsman, but he is also a fluent speaker of Maori and interested in all Maori cultural affairs. Stephen King, the young Aucklander holding the title of "Young Conservator of the Year 1970", has achieved so much in conservation work that he was nominated for the award by three separate bodies in his district. Guests at the luncheon

— a 19-year-old Maori who won son trade-training award and an as New Zealand's first "Young ird winner in August — will be lests of honour at the celebraheld at Wellington to start National Conservation Week, 1970, were told by Mr Mac- i Intyre: "I am only speaking plain fact when I say it would take longer than I have now to go through the complete list of this young man's works for conservation. "I can only say that I don't know how he found tha time to do it, and quote the comment of the Auckland selection panel which said it was proud to associate itself with one who had already achieved so much and who possessed such excellent , potential for the cause of conservation."