Wall of High Achievers

     
1951-54 Ray Thorburn PhD, MA, Life MDINZ Artist, Designer, Educator
 Ray Thorburn Ray has been a teacher and leader all his life. His leadership includes Chief Executive & Academic Director PTE Arts & Media (Film & TV) College, Director Waikato Museum of Art & History, Chief Executive Northland Polytechnic Director where he lead rebuilding it into a debt free, award winning, degree granting institution. As Head of the Design School at Wellington Polytechnic, Ray worked with the Victoria University School of Architecture and the staff of both institutions to create New Zealand’s first university and polytechnic conjoint degree in design. As National Curriculum Officer for Art Education, he has worked with teachers throughout NZ developing and implementing a new art education syllabus for New Zealand primary and secondary schools and a new craft design qualification in polytechnics. He has had a huge impact on the way design was taught in NZ. He was the first Honours graduate in design from the University of Auckland and is a Life member of the NZ Design Institute.
1951-54 Gary Wagstaff AIAA, ANZIA International Yachtsman & Judge
 Gary Wagstaff Gary became a successful architect and worked on many projects including the library and music block of this school and the conversion of the old national Museum to Massey University. His real passion was yachting. His family were founding members of the Evans Bay Yacht club. He has won national championships and represented NZ overseas in 1979 -1982.He then became qualified to become a judge and was an International Judge for almost 20 years. He was awarded an “Honours Award” from Yachting New Zealand “In recognition of outstanding achievement and services to yachting”.
1951 -55  Graham McColl MNZM JP
 Graham Mccoll Graham began his working life in the hospitality industry and in 1965 opened the Montana Restaurant in Hamilton.  He ran the restaurant for 25 years – during that time they won many awards and several of his apprentices took the top chef awards. In 1991 he opened the award winning Souter House Restaurant and Guest House. Graham was Chairperson of the Waikato Restaurants Association and also Vice president of the New Zealand Restaurants Association from 1966 to 1990.  He has been an Honoury Member of the Wine and Food Society for 20 years.  He  was instrumental in setting up the Department of Hospitality and Tourism at the Waikato Technical Polytech, and a member of the Hospitality and Tourism Board from its beginning in the early 70’s, and Chairperson until 2001when he retired. In 1998 he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for lifelong services to the Hospitality Industry. Graham has continued working for the community and has been a Justice of the Peace, responsible for running the JP clinic at Mount Maunganui and JP for the Tauranga Customs for the last 10 years.
1951-55 Grant Tilly MBE Actor, Artist & Teacher
 Grant Tilly Grant has extensive successful experience over 50 years in theatre, radio, television and film as an actor, director, designer and scriptwriter. He was a Senior Tutor at the New Zealand Drama School, co-founder and Council Member of Circa Theatre, Wellington and associate Director, Downstage Theatre, Wellington Grant has won numerous awards, the most recent in 2007 Actor of the year for his role on Homeland. He has been in more than 200 productions , including Middle Age Spread or Foreskin’s Lament, seven short films, over forty TV series; Gliding on, Shark in the Park. Grant Tilly is a household name. He is also an artist of some repute.
1951-55 Bruce Blades QSM Civil Engineer & Community leader
 Bruce Blades Bruce was an engineer and ended his career as managing-director of TSE Group of which he was a founding partner.  He left his mark on national and international projects, among them ventures in Australia, China and Vietnam. He was involved in a wide range of community groups and the Greek community.  As president of the Greek Community of Wellington he was instrumental in the construction of community rooms in Hania St, which to this day serve as classrooms for the community’s Greek language school. He was author of Wellington’s Hellenic Mile, detailing the history of Wellington’s Greek-owned eateries.  As chairman of the New Zealand Parthenon Marbles Committee, he led the petition that convinced the government to declare that the Elgin Marbles, housed in the British Museum, should be returned to Greece. In 2004 Bruce received the Queen’s Service medal in recognition of his services to the community.
1952-54 Raymond Ching Artist
 Raymond Ching Raymond is the best drawer of birds NZ and possibly the world has ever seen.  He painted 240 illustrations for the R.D. Book of British Birds, (1969) which, translated into 11 languages and still in print, is the most successful book on birds published in Europe.  He has published over ten books of birds and his drawings and paintings are exhibited in the major galleries of NZ.  Raymond lives in England and wrote this when asked for his Bio: I had always enjoyed the status of best drawer in our house (no competition, really) and so I was altogether unprepared for the display of draftsmanship shown us in demonstration on the first day at Wellington Tech.  Those inspirational marks were made by Fred Ellis who was, to my great good fortune, Head of the Department of Art at that time, and the wonder of seeing such drawing skills has never left me. His contemporaries regard him as the greatest painter of birds ever.
1954-56 Sir Jon Trimmer KNZM, MBE Ballet Dancer
 John Trimmer Sir Jon Trimmer has been a mainstay of the Royal New Zealand Ballet for 50 of the company’s 53 years. J on started dancing at the age of 12.  He spent a year with the then New Zealand Ballet, before studying at the Royal Ballet School in 1959.  He danced with both The Australian Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet. He has performed with Dame Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Erik Bruhn and many of the world’s top dancers.  Career highlights include being nominated for the best actor award in the Fireraiser television series (1986) and dancing the title role in Petrouchka, and the role of Albrecht in Giselle.  The last 20 years have seen Sir Jon performing mainly character roles with the RNZB, alongside dramatic roles in television and stage plays.  In 2004 he toured New Zealand with the play Meeting Karpovsky. Sir Jon was awarded Television Performer of the Year in 1971, received an MBE in 1974, recieved a Fulbright Scholarship in 1981, and in 1986 was the third recipient of the Turnovsky Award.  He received a knighthood in 1999 for services to ballet.  To celebrate Sir Jon’s 50th anniversary with the Royal New Zealand Ballet he took to the stage last year as “The Don” in Don Quixote.
1954-57 David Preston M Com (Hons) Economist
 David Preston After completing his university study David joined the treasury and worked his way up to Divisional Director Economic Policy and then Social Services Policy.  He spent three years with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC.  In 1980 he was awarded a Visiting Fellowship at Victoria University in Wellington.  He then spent 4 years in Paris as NZs Deputy Permanent representative to the OECD after which he returned to the Treasury and in the mid 1980s worked on Taxation and Benefit Reform and Social Service Policy. In the 1990s he moved to the Department of Social Welfare and rose to general manager of the social policy agency.
1954-58 Ann Pacey (King) Singer & Actor
 Ann Pacey As a jazz singer Ann has had many gigs in restaurants and clubs over a number of years, including residencies at the Duxton, Wellington Intercontinental, The Malthouse, The Oaks Brasserie,  and she’s been a support act for Michael Crawford.  Ann has also taken part in many concerts at Old St. Paul’s, the Hot Club Sandwich and with Kirsten Mackenzie’s trio, The International Festival of the Arts, several appearances at Government House, and charity events.  She has been in numerous radio programmes on National Radio; and released three albums. Ann has been in many musicals including Chicago and Braindead.  She acted the title role in Mabel and had numerous supporting roles in plays such as the Odd Couple and A Streetcar named Desire.  Ann has been regularly seen on our TV screens in series like; Big Night In, Dark Knight and 56 children programmes.  She has had supporting roles in several movies being nominated for best supporting actor in Send a Gorilla.
1957-60 Allan Lees International Theatre Designer
 Allan Lees Allan Lees has spent 50 years in theatre and costume design.  He is currently Director General of Theatre Associates in Sydney. His skills have seen him sought after and involved in over 350 major productions – the majority in Australia, but a significant number locally and internationally. He has designed with 45 major companies in opera, ballet, musicals and theatre. Examples of his work with the Royal New Zealand Ballet could be seen in Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, the Canterbury Opera production of Don Giovanni, and The Merry Widow for the Wellington Opera Company.  For three years 1991-1994 Allan was General Manager of the State Opera House in Wellington. Allan’s extensive background saw him design costumes for episodes of Star Wars. Allan was Guest Lecturer in Theatre at the NZ Drama School in Wellington during which his designs for the musical THE JUNGLE BOOK received the Chapman Tripp Costume Designer of the Year Award in 2001. His most recent New Zealand productions have been MADAMA BUTTERFLY with director Elric Hooper for Dunedin 2003, and CARMEN for Christopher Doig at Southern Opera in 2007. Currently Allan is in Perth where he is Designer for a new production of CINDERELLA for the West Australian Ballet.
1955-58 Marie Ward (Knight) NZ Basketball & Softball
 Marie Ward Marie has represented NZ in two sports.  She represented NZ in basketball 1963-1967 – touring Australia twice, while representing Wellington for 13 years. Marie was a Wellington representative in softball from 1958 – 1974 and a member of the New Zealand team competing in the first World Series in Melbourne in1965, in Osaka, Japan in 1970 and captained the team in Stratford, Connecticut, USA in 1974. She was inducted into the International Softball Federation Hall of Fame in 1991 and carried the Olympic torch preceding the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.