People

Mr. R. D. McEwan, BA, Director of the Cook Islands’

Education Department, has re tired to New Zealand after nearly 10 years in the Cooks— seven of them as Director.

MR. McEWAN, a modest and quiet-spoken man, saw great advances in the Cooks’ education system during his term of office.

The entire primary programme was overhauled and improved and great strides were made in secondary education.

From a modest beginning in 1956, Rarotonga’s Tereora Secondary Col lege expanded, and Junior High Schools came into existence in Aitutaki, Mangaia and Atiu. The programme is expected to continue to expand until there are about 2,000 secondary students in the Cook Group.

Since 1956, 200 modern class rooms with staffrooms, milkrooms, etc., have been built throughout the Group, • Ratu Penaia Ganilau has been appointed Secretary for Fijian Affairs and Local Government, to succeed Mr. A. C. Reid. Ratu Penaia, below, one of the commanders of the Fiji Battalion which served in Malaya

from 1952 to 1956, is the second Fijian to become Secretary for Fijian Affairs. The first was the late Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna. • Mr. W. Granger has been ap pointed Executive Officer for Econo mic Development in the South Pacific Commission. He has replaced Mr. Jacques Barrau. • Mr. Jim Huxley, who recently resigned as managing editor of the New Guinea Times-Courier in Lae, has returned to Sydney with his wife and four sons after 25 years in Papua-New Guinea. • A well-known group of Tahitian dancers, Heiva Madeleine, left Papeete by air in mid-May for a tour of Australia. • Mr. Charles Ivens Buffett, a former Official Secretary on Norfolk Island, and now Autralia’s Official Representative on Cocos Island, Indian Ocean, visited Canberra recently. • Mr. Robert R. Nathan, pre sident, and Mr. David L. Chewning, senior associate of the economic development consulting firm of Nathan Associates, of Washington, DC, arrived in Saipan recently to begin studies to prepare an economic

development programme for the United States Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Micronesia). Other members of the firm will arrive in June. • After having been American consul in Tahiti for just over three months, Mr. George Gray returned to work at his old consulate in Suva on May 10. The French Govern ment, without giving a reason, forced the US consulate in Tahiti to close at the end of April, after it had been open for only three months. ( PIM, May, p, 123.) Mr. Gray expects to remain in Suva for several months before returning to Washington for reposting. • Mr. J. Burns has been appointed Director of Public Works in Papua- New Guinea. He is on loan from the Commonwealth Department of Works for two years. He joined the Commonwealth Works Department in 1950 and became construction manager in P-NG in 1962. • When Miss Helene Marioge, of Noumea, passed a test recently which gave her an aircraft pilot’s licence, she became the youngest pilot in all French territories and in France. Miss Marioge, who has just turned 17, had to wait patiently for her birthday before she was allowed to do the test. (ovsr)

NEW DISTRICT OFFICE: P-NG's Public Service Commissioner, Mr. G. D. Somers, officially opened a new District Office building at Rabaul on May 17. The two-storey steel-frame structure has been built at a cost of £144,000, and will provide office space for Administration staff formerly located in temporary buildings and rented offices in various parts of Rabaul. A new District Office at Lae is also nearing completion and expected to be finished in about two months.

• Mr. J. A. Sandys, the Fijian Director of Agriculture, will go on retirement leave in July. Mr. Sandys went to Fiji in 1962 as Deputy Director of Agriculture, and suc ceeded to the top post on the retire ment of Mr. J. M. Watson. • The Rev, Dr. George A. F.

Knight has been appointed principal of the Pacific Theological College, which is being built at Suva by a consortium of Pacific churches. The college will open next year. Dr.

Knight is from Scotland, and will take up his appointment about October. He has been Professor of Old Testament History and Theology at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, since 1960, and has held similar positions in New Zealand and Scotland. He is also an authority on the history of the Reformed Church in Hungary, having served there for some years. e Mr. E. B. Houston, manager of the USS Co. of NZ Ltd., at Raro tonga for the last six years, has been transferred to Launceston, Tasmania, as branch manager. • Mr. G. D. Cannon, director of the Papua-New Guinea Department of Trade and Industry has resigned to become a senior eexcutive with the W. R. Carpenter group of com panies in the Territory. • Dr. A. Guinea, medical officer of health for Taranaki, New Zealand, has been appointed chief medical officer in the Cook Islands. The ap pointment is for a three-year term. • The Administrator of Papua- New Guinea, Sir Donald Cleland, said in late May that he would order an investigation into an allega tion that the native Parliamentary (Jnder-Secretary for Police, Simogen Pita, had been ordered to leave a Port Moresby hotel because he was wearing rubber thongs. The allega tion was made in the House of Assembly by another native mem ber, James Meanggarum, and con firmed outside the house by Simogen. The hotel was the Hotel Papua. • Captain Ron Duffield, manager of the Qantas office in Tokyo for the last five years, has been appointed manager of Fiji Airways, and left Sydney for Suva in early June. He takes over from Mr. Chris Ritchie, who is returning to Qantas in Sydney.

Fiji Airways, which is owned by Aus tralia, New Zealand, Fiji and Britain, has undergone great expansion during Mr. Ritchie’s management.