People
p. 34 · Read in the full issue
• Senator Henri Lafleur, longest serving member of New Caledonia’s Territorial Assembly, has resigned after 32 years’ service. He plans to devote all his time to defending New Caledonia’s economic interests in Paris where he is the territory’s representative in the French Senate. • Mr. John deYoung, who retires from the South Pacific Commission on December 7 after more than four years as director of the social develop ment programme, and acting sec retary-general, is returning to a post in Washington, in the Office of the Secretary, Department of Interior. • Mr. Ronald Kermode, Speaker of Fiji’s House of Representatives, will campaign in the general elections next year as an independent candidate.
Elected Speaker five years ago when he was an Alliance Party member, he severed his connection with the party, believing that the Speaker should be independent and impartial. He’s hoping the Alliance and National Federation Party will not oppose him.
If they do, he will not stand. “I would only fight an election if it meant contesting against another independent,” he said. He likes being Speaker because, “The job has now got a grip on me”. • Founder and president of the Polynesian Society of Sydney, Mr.
Leonard Moran was admitted to St.
Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney in November, and a leg was amputated.
Mr. Moran, who lives at 105 Har grave Street, Paddington, is recog nised as an authority on Polynesian music. • Fuchita Bossy has been named Mayor of Moen in Truk to complete the unexpired term of the late Chief Petrus Mailo, who died on September 12 (PIM, Oct., p. 132). • An ex-BBC programme editor, Mr. John Hunt, is the new general manager of the Fiji Broadcasting Commission, succeeding Mr. G. M.
Cullen who retired earlier this year.
Mr. Hunt, who arrived in Suva early in November, was, for the last 18 months, Radio London’s programme editor, concentrating on minority groups of which Britain has now got
quite a few. Radio London managed to broadcast for 12 hours a day using material they had produced them selves, some of it in Bengali and Hindustani. He has plans for multi lingual radio channels in Fiji. • Mr. William Desmond Thomas Ward, a member of the special Judge Advocate Panel of the Directorate of Legal Services at the Australian Army HQ, has been appointed a temporary judge of the PNG Supreme Court. He will serve during the absence of judges on leave and on other duties. Mr. Ward has been associated with the preparation of the 1945 annotated reprints of PNG laws. • Mr. John Glude, an oyster ex pert with the United States Fish and Wild Life Service in Seattle, Washing ton, was in the US Trust Territory in November assessing the chances of starting oyster farms as an aid to the development of TT resources.
He visited Palau, Truk and Ponape districts, spending about a week in each. • Mr. John Gough, ex-Oxford University, ex-Morris Hedstroms in
Suva is now ex-New Guinea Com pany Ltd. to which he went from Fiji in 1969 as chief merchandising executive. Having, as Mr. W. R.
Carpenter, of W. R. Carpenter and Co. Ltd., said at the 1971 New Guinea Co. Ltd’s Port Moresby managers’ conference, restored “that degree of stability in the company which will now permit the tempo of merchandising development to be ac celerated,” he has now become a senior administrator at Carpenter’s head office in Sydney. • Sir David Trench has now fol lowed in the footsteps of another former High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, Sir John Gutch, in making a visit to the Solomons and the New Hebrides. Sir David, who has just retired as Governor of Hong Kong, spent five days in the BSIP in October, staying with his old friend and colleague Sir Michael Gass. Both served together in the BSIP and Hong Kong. Sir David passed through Vila on his way to Honolulu. • Mr. Fred Osifelo, Deputy Com missioner of Lands in the BSIP, is to act as District Commissioner, Eastern, in December—which will make him the first Solomon Islander to take over a district. Mr. Osifelo was manager of the BSIP team at the Tahiti Games in September. • Rev. Justin J. Gooderham, former President of the Methodist Conference in Tonga, is currently teaching English and history on the staff of Heatherhill High School, Melbourne, until another church position is found for him. • Mr. Tauvira Maka, a senior section clerk in the Cook Islands Post Office, has retired after 36 years’ service. He’ll never forget the first year he joined the service—l93s, for $9O a year, when a hurricane cut communications between the post office and the radio station. Twice a day throughout the hurricane and until communications were restored, he walked for three hours, often waist-deep in seawater, between the two places. He worked under nine post masters in his 36 years. • Mr. Bert Speer, in the PNG Public Health Department for 24 years, has retired through ill-health.
He joined as a medical assistant and for 11 years served in the Gulf, Central Northern, Madang, Morobe and Southern Highlands districts. He has held various administrative and executive positions since 1958 and has served as regional administrative officer at Rabaul, Lae and Goroka.
NEW VICE-CHANCELLOR. Looking con siderably more hairy since his move to Canberra this year, where he has had a research fellowship at the ANU, is Professor K. S. Inglis, Foundation Profes sor of History at the University of Papua New Guinea. Presumably he'll take his beard back to Port Moresby with him when, in May, he takes over the post of vice-chancellor there from Dr. John Gunther, who is retiring. Professor Inglis' appointment was announced in November. He joined the university in 1967. He's now 42, and has a BA and MA from Melbourne and D. Phil (Oxon).