People

• Mr. J. E. Wakeford, who has retired as District Commissioner for the West Sepik District of New Guinea, will be replaced from July 1 by Mr. B. Bunting, Deputy District Commissioner for Morobe, who has been with the PNG government since 1947. Another PNG retirement at the end of June is that of Mr. lan Skin ner, Director of Civil Defence since 1965, and a government man since 1937. He’s a wartime New Guinea Coastwatcher, and, like Mr. Wake ford, one of the old brigade of NG men who are fast disappearing from the scene. He’ll retire to Queensland.

New Director of Civil Defence will be Mr. W. J. Johnson, a Deputy Dis trict Commissioner. District Adminis tration, Port Moresby, who joined the administration as a patrol officer in 1946. • Air Melanesia’s lone French pilot. Captain Pierre Suchet, has been awarded a special medal by the French Navy. The medal, le Medaille d’Aeronautique, was presented to him at Noumea at the end of May. Cap tain Suchet flew with the French Navy for 20 years and piloted DC4s out of Noumea. • Because she didn’t want her father to know she was making a bid for fame via stage talent quests. Miss Fiapaipai Faleauto Taua Williams changed her mouthful of name to Fia Chaplin. Now she’s a well-known pop singer in New Zealand and has also sung in Australia. Fia, who left West ern Samoa with her parents at the age of four, has just been on a visit to her homeland, the first for 22 years.

Her relations in Samoa found that she hasn’t forgotten a word of Samoan. • Fiji, with the Queen’s approval, is establishing formal diplomatic rela tions with Israel. The first Israeli Am bassador to Fiji will be Mr. Moshe Erell, who will combine the job with his present one, Ambassador in Aus tralia. He is expected to present his credentials to Fiji’s Governor-General, Sir Robert Foster, in Suva in July.

Mr. Erell is also non-resident Am bassador to New Zealand. There s no news yet of Fiji making a reciprocal appointment.

• Mr. R. Turpin, on transfer from the Solomons, has been appointed secretary to the Leader of Govern ment Business in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in place of Mr.

J. B. McCaig, who has retired. Mr.

Turpin is no stranger to Tarawa. He served in the colony from 1950 to 1963. Another appointment named in Tarawa is that of Mr. D. M. Free gard as chairman of the Copra Board.

He succeeds Mr. A. V. Hughes. • Four New Hebridean teachers will leave for England in August or September for a year’s study at UK universities. They are Willie Kupa, of lenaula School, Tanna (University of Birmingham), Aman Ngwero, of Londua School, Aoba (Cambridge), Joe Joseph, of Lenakel School, Tanna (Oxford) and Samuel Buie, of Toli School. Pentecost (Moray House Col lege of Education, Edinburgh). • Tonga’s Free Wesleyan Church has got its first local-born president, the Rev. Dr. Sione ’Amanaki Havea, who was elected at the annual con ference at Vavau at the end of May.

Dr. Havea is the former secretary of the conference and principal of Sia’atoutai Bible College. • A date has now been set for the official retirement of Mr. P. T. W.

Black, as general manager of Burns Philp and Co. Ltd. (PIM, June, p. 114). It’s July 9, and as predicted in PIM he will be succeeded by Mr.

Maurice O’Connor.

It is not uncommon for employees of Burns Philp and Co. Ltd. to serve the “big firm” for 40, 50 or more years. Three who also retire in July aggregated 152 years’ service. They are Mr. R. W. Peel, assistant secre tary (56 years), Mr. P. B. Macpher son, engineers’ department (49 years) and Mr. A. G. Monteith, manager of the insurance department (47 years). • Mr. David Barnes, Fiji’s Com missioner of Inland Revenue since 1957, has retired and is succeeded by the Deputy Commissioner, Mr.

Surendra Singh. Mr. Barnes arrived in Fiji as a soldier with the New Zealand Forces in 1940 and joined the Treasury on demobilisation in 1945. He was transferred to the Inland Revenue Department in 1949. A devout Anglican, Mr. Barnes is stay ing in Fiji to become Secretary of the Diocese in Polynesia. Mr. Singh, his successor, has a Bachelor of Com merce degree from Otago University in New Zealand and spent three years with the UK Revenue Department. • A New Zealand television documentary producer and inter viewer has been appointed director

of educational broadcasts in Fiji.

He is 35-year-old Mr. lan Johnstone.

His main job will be training broad casters but he will also work in the adult education field and help to establish a central library of tape recordings. • PNG’s Ministerial Member for Education and MHA for East New Britain, Matthias Toliman was created a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s Birth day Honours List in June.

That doyen of NG missionaries, who first went to the Highlands in 1934, Father William Ross, SVD. was awarded an honorary OBE, honorary because he is an American.

The OBE also went to Sister Mary Camillus (Miss Ethel Florence Gil ham), of Port Moresby and an MBE (civil) to Soa Übia of West New Britain. Also in the Commonwealth list was Captain Brett Hilder, well known in the Pacific, particularly in New Guinea and Melanesia, as a ship’s master. He was awarded the MBE for services to navigation. A Fijian anthropologist with a doc torate in philosophy, Dr. Rusiate Nayacakalou topped the Fiji list with an OBE. He is the manager of the Fiji Native Land Trust Board which handles all the affairs con nected with the land owned by the Fijians. Fiji awards included MBEs which went to Suva businessman, Mr. B. S. Seeto, a leader of the Chinese community in Suva, Mr. H.

Captain Brett Milder, MBE, as seen by himself.

M. Lodhia, chairman of the Nadi Township Board, and Mr. Edmond Llewellyn Ashley, hotelier and former chairman of the Levuka Township Board. Two New Heb rides residents were also honoured by the Queen. They are the Yen, Derek Rawcliffe, Archdeacon of Melanesia, who was awarded the OBE, and Mr. Michael Ala, presi dent of the Aoba Local Council, made an MBE. Another MBE was awarded to Rev. losia Toamia, secre tary of the Ellice Islands Protestant Church. • Taulapapa Faimaala, Western Samoa’s first and only woman mem ber of Parliament and Deputy Speaker, will lead the country’s three member delegation to the Common wealth Parliamentary Association’s meeting in Malaysia in September.

Other members of the delegation will be Su’a Aloese and Tom Oott. The Speaker, Magele Ate, and the Clerk of the House, George Fepuleai, were chosen to attend the three-day con ference in Suva in June of the fourth annual Australasian conference of presiding officers and clerks of Par liament, the first held outside Aus tralia. • Mr. Alfred Watson, chief general manager of Emperor Gold Mining Co. Ltd., left Fiji on June 8 after 14 years at Vatukoula. He went to Fiji as assistant general manager, became general manager in 1964 and chief general manager five years later. In the same year, he was appointed chief general manager of mining operations for the Loloma Mining Corporation in Australia. Back in Australia he will concentrate on Loloma’s mining operations. • Prince Marc Pomare, 17, a member of the long-superseded Royal family of Tahiti, left Tahiti for France at the end of April to con tinue his studies at a school in Nor mandy. The prince is the eldest of the six children of the late Prince Louis Pomare, who was accidentally killed in March, 1965 (PIM, May, 1965, p. 157). • Mr. Fofo Sunia, American Samoa’s tourism director for the past three years, will leave his post in July to become a fulltime member of Samoa’s Senate. His successor has not been named, although talk in Pago Pago has it tourism could be put under the control of the Government Office of Information headed by for mer Hawaii resident, Ed Engledow. • Mr. Homer L’Heureux has been appointed manager of the Guam Con tinental Travelodge and Continental Travelodges at Truk and Koror. He’s

already worked with Travelodges in Hawaii. • Mr. Doug Brown, Fiji’s Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests, returned home on June 11 after visits with his wife to Taiwan, where they were the guests of the Republic of China, and to Australia. He said in Suva that he had talks in Taiwan with ministers who saw the possi bility of aid for Fiji in the areas in Mr. Brown’s portfolio. Ovbiously on the lookout for anything which might help Fiji, Mr. Brown had talks in Canberra with the Israeli Ambassa dor, Mr. Moshe Erell, who imbued Mr, Brown with the hope that Israel would perhaps aid Fiji through the loan of agricultural engineering specialists. • Mr. Jack F. Tittle, area manager for the US Federal Aviation Agency in American Samoa, retired at the end of May after five and a half years service. He will make his home in Australia. His successor is Mr. Melvin Larsen. • India’s High Commissioner in Fiji since 1969, Mr. A. P. Venkates waran was to return to New Delhi in June with his tour completed. His successor, Mr. Bhagwan Singh, was

expected to arrive in Fiji on June 29.

After occupying several official posts in Uttar Pradesh State, Mr. Singh was appointed joint secretary to the Ministry of Rehabilitation. He has also served as managing director of the National Mineral Development Corporation, Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and Tea Board chairman. • Captain Gerry Douglas, Super intendent of Marine in the Solomons has retired after 19 years with the Western Pacific High Commission. He joined the commission as a marine officer in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. He was appointed Super intendent of Marine there in 1957 and transferred to the Solomons in 1964.

With the Sydney Opera House as a fitting background—it's worth looking at too — Fiji's Miss Hibiscus 1970, Adi Tolatoka Lalabalavu, makes an attractive picture.

She was in Sydney for the day—some time in May—while on her way to 'spend" her first prize, a two-week holi day tour of Japan provided by Qantas.

When she's not winning beauty prizes, Adi Tolatoka is teaching at the Savareka reka RC School in Savusavu.