People

• Mike Linden, a Rugby Union football enthusiast who has spent several years in Fiji as treasurer of the Fiji Rugby Union and a selector for the colony, has recently taken up a new job in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, as senior clerk in the terri tory’s Treasury Department. Mike is expected to put his football ex perience to good use by coaching locals. • Captain John Holm, managing director of Holm and Co. Ltd., re cently spent two weeks in Papeete, Tahiti, looking into ways of increas ing New Zealand trade with French Polynesia. Holm ships maintain monthly cargo services with Tahiti and the Cook Islands, as well as operating fortnightly runs out of NZ to Noumea, New Caledonia. • Mr. George Hoover, in the US Trust Territory for the past two years, was recently appointed District Administrator, Yap. Mr. Hoover, 37, was Yap District Officer in 1967, and Assistant District Administrator from February last year. • Mr. Walter Hambuechen, editor since 1964 of the Cook Islands Gov ernment-owned newspaper the Cook Islands News recently relinquished his editorship to take charge of an other government publication, the Cook Islands Review magazine, which is published at Rarotonga about five times a year. • Two new arrivals in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, are Mr. and Mrs. Roger Blake, formerly of Dunedin, New Zealand. Mr. Blake, an experienced cook in NZ, is now chef at one of the island’s new restaurants, Rima’s Polynesian Cafe. • Eric Fordham, an old Islands hand (he put in two years in Fiji be fore World War II with a trading firm) has for several years been moving about the Islands selling Aus tralian rice. Future trips include a stay in New Guinea in August and a week in Tahiti later this year. (Eric hopes to escape for a few days from business in Papeete to a resort on nearby Moorea.) • Nicolai Michoutouchkine, French-naturalised painter and “col lector extraordinaire” of Polynesian

and Melanesian artefacts, is currently interior decorator for the French Hotel Maeva just outside Papeete.

Nicolai has lent much of his collec tion of artefacts to the hotel. At his own expense Nicolai has wandered the Islands for over 16 years collect ing artefacts. Based in Vila, New Hebrides, he hopes that the Hebrides government will one day build a central museum to house Melanesian artefacts from the whole area. • Messrs. M. L. Hegan and Kapi Kapi have been appointed to the Cook Islands’ newly-formed Public Service Commission. Mr. Hegan, for some years a top official with the Cl Government, is chair man, and Mr. Kapi, a Cl public servant for 34 years, is a member of the commission. It will be accom modated in offices on the bottom floor of Rarotonga’s new Post Office, due to be built by August. • New Zealand artist Alan Thorn ton, who has had all sorts of weird adventures with transporting his paint ings around the Islands in recent months, was recently in Vila, New Hebrides, for a month’s stay. His specialty is portrait painting and his works are known in New Caledonia and the US. • Rory Scott, Suva-based manager of the Fiji Visitors Bureau, made his umpteenth appearance in Sydney in July to spread the word about Fiji.

Rory, who has built up quite a name for himself in his three years of sell ing Fiji, says that about 60 American travel writers will be arriving in the colony at different times during the next nine months. • Recent executive appointments on Fiji’s Emperor Mines Ltd.: Mr.

N. E. Nilsen has been made executive director, Mr. A. Watson has been made director and chief general manager, and Mr. O. H. Marshall has been made general manager of Emperor Gold Mining Company Ltd. • Nadi pharmacist, Mr. Raymond Prasad, has been appointed manager of the Fiji Visitors Bureau’s new Melbourne office, due to open in October.

Mr, Prasad, 40, married with three children, was educated at Ivanhoe Grammar School, Melbourne but during the past few years he has been associated with the development of Fiji tourism, particularly in the Nadi area. For the past three years he has been organiser of the Miss Fiji Quest, the winner of which competes in the annual Queen of the Pacific Quest.

• Three new District Commis sioners have recently taken up ap pointments in Papua-New Guinea.

They are Messrs. F. M. Driver Milne Bay; R. S. Bell, the Gulf District; and I. A. Holmes, Western District. • Mr. and Mrs. Harrie Standen, longtime missionaries in Papua-New Guinea and for many years opera tors of Papua’s independent Bamu River Mission, “The Mission in the Mud”, are trying to raise $3,000 for a new mission motor vessel to re place their aged 40 ft ketch, Crusader. Mr. Standen arrived in Papua in 1933 and his wife, Eva, ° n Fly ver in early • New Guinea businessman Mr.

Tim Ward, who recently sold his Trobnands Hotel, its accompanying trade store and copra-collection opera tions for $130,000 (PIM, June, p. ’ W BI build a $250,000 bowling alley and recreation complex in Port Moresby if he can get approval from the NG Lands Department for his venture. • Father William Ross, who has worked in Papua-New Guinea as a missionary since 1926 and who in 1934 set up the Mount Hagen Catholic Mission, is currently on six months’ leave at his hometown Lawrenceville, New Jersey, USA. • Father Kevin Murphy, who has worked at various Roman Catholic missions in eastern Papua for 20 years, is trying to raise about $lO,OOO to build six primary schools at his current base, Kiriwina, in the Trobriand Islands. The Kiriwina mis sion doesn’t have the money, Father Murphy told PIM, and the schools are badly needed for 800 pupils. • Mr. Francisco C. Ada, a founder of the Mariana Islands District Legislature and a former member of the legislature, was recently appointed acting District Administrator, Mariana Islands. Mr. Ada, 34, is an islander from Saipan. He and his wife, Ines, have six children. • Dr, Earl C. Hald, a Professor of Economics and interregional adviser with the Centre for Develop ment planning of the United Nations in New York, visited Rarotonga in June to advise on economic and social development and to discuss possible assistance for the Cook Islands from the United Nations Development Programme.