People
p. 123 · Read in the full issue
TWO UN advisers whose work over the past three or four years could have a profound effect on Western Samoa’s future left Apia in January. They are architect-town planner Z. M. Wolak and economic planner A. Gerakas.
During his three-year term Mr.
Wolak, a Pole, completed many major projects. The most spectacu lar of these was a master develop ment plan for Apia involving the construction of a modern municipal centre, government offices and a town plaza in a garden setting on the 28 acres of land in front of Beach Road, reclaimed during the wharf construction.
Mr. Gerakas, who was Director of the newly-formed Department of Economic Development, was largely responsible for a revolutionary change in economic attitudes during his four years in Apia. Much of the credit for the general acceptance of tourism, foreign capital, industrial incentives and the need for long term economic planning must go to him and, to a lesser extent, to the Minister of Finance, Mr. G. F. D.
Betham, who generally acted on his advice.
Mr. Gerakas left to take up a top civil service post in Hawaii—Director of Economic Planning. Mr. Wolak intends to complete his doctorate in Europe, while his wife, a medical doctor, who was working at Apia Hospital, will study tropical medicine in London. • An Administration officer who took part in the early development of the Eastern Highlands District of Mew Guinea left Moresby on January 12 to settle in Australia. He is Mr.
F. G. Aitchison, the First Assistant Director of the Department of Dis :rict Administration. He has retired after 34 years’ service.
• Cruising photographer, Jim
Anderson, who took this picture, knows her only as Marie. She is a pretty French-
Tahitian from Uturoa, Raiatea,
who says she hopes to go to France one day. She loves to cook, and her favourite dish is baked cream puff.
Mr. Aitchison was in charge of the government station at Kainantu in 1933—0n1y five years after the first patrol had penetrated the area from the Chimbu Divide to the Mark ham River.
During World War 11, Mr. Aitchi son served first as a private and later as a major in the Sepik, Northern, Morobe and Eastern Highlands Dis tricts. He selected and established coast-watching stations in the Bougain ville and Sepik Districts. Later, he helped to re-establish civil adminis tration.
Mr. Aitchison and his wife plan to establish a small horse stud on a property outside Sydney. • Kipling Uiari, 24, who studied at the University of Queensland, has become the first student from Papua- New Guinea to complete courses leading to the degree of Bachelor of Arts.
His course included studies in psychology, geography, economics, English and education. Mr. Uiari comes from Gona Village in the Northern District. His father is a teacher with the Anglican Mission. • Mr, lan Graham Turbott, an administrative officer in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony from 1948 to 1956, was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours List. Mr.
Turbott, a New Zealander, who is now Governor of the Associated State of Grenada in the Caribbean, was created CMG in 1962 and CVO in 1966. After leaving the GEIC, he served in the Colonial Office for two years and was then Administrator of Antigua until 1964. • Mr. F. R. J, (Ron) Davies, widely known as the New Zealand Education Department’s officer for Islands education, retired recently after 40 years’ service with the de partment. His appointment as head master of the Provincial School, Lodoni, in Fiji, in 1939, marked the beginning of a long association with education in the Pacific Islands. • Mr. Jaswant Singh Gill, 42, recently took up his appointment in Suva as Commissioner for India in Fiji. He replaces Mr. D. Murugessan, who has returned to India. Mr. Gill is the youngest of the seven commis sioners who have so far represented their country in Fiji. He has pre viously served in Argentina, Nepal, Ghana and Australia. • Dr. Robert K. Shoecraft has
been appointed Chief Justice of the United States Trust Territory. He succeeds Justice Edward P. Furber, who retired on January 31, after 20 years’ as Chief Justice of the Trust Territory. Dr. Shoecraft has served in the Trust Territory since Decem ber of 1958. He began his career as Assistant Attorney-General and in 1961 was named Attorney-General with responsibility for the entire legal programme of the Trust Territory. • The Bishop in Polynesia, the Rt.
Rev. John Charles Vockler, has re signed to enter an Anglican religious order. He said recently that his six years as bishop had been extremely exacting and had left him physically, mentally and spiritually weary. He added that he wanted to give time and thought to scholarship and the exacting theological problems facing the Church in the Pacific today. • Mr. Walter O. Cernohorsky, of Vatukoula, Fiji, has been appointed conchologist to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and will take over from Dr. A. W. B. Powell next April.
Mr. Cernohorsky is author of Marine Shells of the Pacific recently pub lished by Pacific Publications Pty.
Ltd. • Mr. Jacques Mouradian, French Resident Commissioner in the New Hebrides, was recently promoted to the rank of Officer in the Legion of Honour. Mr. Louis Tolme, of CFNH, has been appointed a Chevalier in the Legion for military purposes.
Justice Ferber.