People
pp. 31-33 · Read in the full issue
• Our prolific Percy Chatterton, missionary extraordinaire and a man who has himself written many a telling work, has come up with another scoop—the Bible in Motu— a language common to many in Central Papua.
Percy Chatterton, with the help of Mr Ron Lean, hopes to have the first Motu Bible in printed form in time for the centenary of the landing of the first South Pacific Missionaries at Hanuabada later this year. Work ing at his usual zippy rate, he only started work on the translation for the Bible Society in May last year.
Hong Kong, hardly a bastion of the Christian faith but a source of high quality, has got the print job. • Mr T. E. Fitzgerald, who is now living in Levin, New Zealand, has been awarded the Queen’s Com mendation for Brave Conduct. He was in an Air Melanesiae aircraft which crashed in Tanna in October 19, 1972. Although partly dazed, and bleeding he ran several miles
for help and had a rescue party at the aircraft wreckage an hour and a half after it crashed. • Mr Arthur Jawodimbari, 23, a young Papua New Guinea play wright, has been awarded a three month scholarship to study theatre work overseas. He will visit the Philippines, India and a number of African countries, and possibly Eng land, Japan and the US. He is the author of five plays, and has won a play competition. He graduated BA from the University of Papua New Guinea in 1972 and is now studying for his MA degree. • Miss Gloria Gibbons, 23, was made acting High Chief Ibedul in Palau. She will sit in the Palau District Legislature and take part in proceedings with the rest of the traditional leaders of Palau. Miss Gibbons will relinquish the title when her brother, Ibedul Yutaka Gibbons, returns to Palau from the US Army. • Mr David Agir, new manager of Nauru Radio is the first Nauruan to hold the post on a substantive basis. He has been with the service since it opened in 1968, and was trained by two former managers, Graham Leggott and Des Telfer. • Mr John Smeeton has retired as manager of the government broad casting station at Daru, Papua New Guinea, and has been succeeded by Mr Kahi Vila. Mr Smeeton was in PNG for 30 years. • Mr A. D. Fry, director of Pacific Diesel and Technical Agencies, Marrickville, NSW, left Australia late in May for a tour of Papua New Guinea and the BSIP. His company distributes and services the V. M. air-cooled diesel engine range, Kawa saki lighting sets and Archimedes Penta outboard engines. On his tour he introduced a new range of Kawasaki lightweight petrol driven generator sets. • Lieutenant-Colonel G. D. W.
Irvine is now the commanding officer of the Ist Battalion, the Pacific Islands Regiment. He recently suc ceeded Lieutenant-Colonel R. G.
Lange, who has been posted to the Australian Army Staff College, Queenscliff, Victoria, and who lived in Rabaul before joining the Aus tralian Army. Lieutenant-Colonel Irvine, who went to PNG from a staff appointment at Army Head quarters, Canberra, has previous ex perience in PNG. He was posted to the PIR at Wewak in 1968, and five months later left it to raise the PNG Military Cadet School, which he commanded till February, 1970.
• Mr Michael Pfeiffer has been appointed resident director and manager of W. D. & H. O. Wills (PNG) Ltd, in succession to Mr Bill Goss. Mr Goss has returned to Aus tralia to become manager of the southern division in NSW for Wills, based in Canberra. Mr Pfeiffer is ex perienced in the tobacco industry in the Islands. For about three years he was manager of the Solomon Islands Tobacco Co Ltd, Honiara. In the sporting field he was assistant manager of the BSIP at the 1971 South Pacific Games in Tahiti. • Sister Mary Clementine, a missionary sister of the order of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, recently celebrated the 75th an niversary of her arrival in the GEIC.
She is now 96 and in her 75 years in the GEIC has been away twice on short visits to Europe. Things were grim when she arrived in 1898.
“When we landed at Nonouti we found the local kitchen was stocked with two small saucepans, a few plates and a couple of spoons— among 12 missionaries,” she re called recently. There were special celebrations to mark the anniversary including a high mass at which her nephew, Bishop Guichet, presided. • Meleane Bese, a 23-year-old Funafuti girl, has been awarded the Royal Humane Society’s Silver Medal and Certificate of Honour, for saving the lives of a six-year-old child and its mother during Hurricane Bebe in October, 1972. Meleane, a Meteorological Office employee, clung to a tree for five hours, arms and legs wrapped round it because
Papua New Guinea has got its first full time trade union official and he's only 20. He is Mr Harry Manuambi (pictured), an apprentice motor mechanic with the Army before he became interested in trade unions. He has been appointed general secretary of the East Sepik District Workers' Association which has 1,600 members.
Mr Michael Pfeiffer.
the water was too deep to stand on the bottom, with the child and mother on her back. She had rescued them both as she was swept along by the tidal wave which took five lives. She was able to swim with them to the tree. ® Mr Matias Yaliwan, leader of the Mount Turn cargo cult in 1971 and founder of the Peli Association, has resigned his seat as representative of Yangoru-Saussia constituency in the PNG House of Assembly. His resignation came bv letter which left Speaker Barry Holloway in a quan dary. The signature on the letter was different from that which he wrote when he was sworn in as MHA 13 months ago. Mr Yaliwan cleared up the mvstery a few davs later, explain ing that he asked his clerk to sign it as he thought that was the correct thing to do. He promised to send a second letter of resignation signed by himself. ® Mr B. Hill, executive director of the Papua New Guinea Tourist Board, has resigned. He joined the in I°*9, and as executive director had full operation control of the board’s activities. ® A military tradition is continuing in a Fiii family. Officer Cadet Epeli 22, son of Patu Penaia who commanded the Fiii Battalion in Malava in 1955-56, has gone to England for a train ing course at the Foval Military Academy. Sandhurst. Wi f h him was Officer Cadet Kadavulevu, 25. son of Patu Tevita NaulWou and a nenfiew of the Governor-General of Fiii. Ratu Sir George The cadets are to graduate as commissioned officers in Nov ember. ® Mr Oala Oala Rarua, Lord Mayor of Port Moresby, and a former politician, has joined the board of PNG Motors Ltd. ® Mr Philip Snow, a former com missioner in Fiji and a keen cricketer, has been elected an honorary life member of the MCC for his services for international cricket. He was in Fiji from 1938 to 1952 and as his work took him to the various districts he founded district cricket associations. With the late Ratu Sir Lala S'ukuna he founded the Fiji Cricket Association. He captained the Fiji cricket team which toured New Zealand in 1948. He also wrote a book, Cricket in the Fiji Islands.
Since leaving Fiji in 1952 he arranged for that country to be the first non test playing country to be admitted
to the International Cricket Con ference of the test countries. He has represented Fiji at each annual con ference since then. Mr Snow is now a magistrate for Warwickshire and bursar of Rugby School. Apart from his book on Fiji cricket, he is the author of several historical and ethnographic works on the South Pacific, as well as the Bibliography of Fiji, Tonga and Rotuma. In 1974, Fiji will issue a set of postage stamps to mark the centenary of cricket there. Mr Snow has been asked to help design the stamps. © Fifita Fekitoa, a young Tongan is serving his indentures as a sheet metal worker with a Sydney stainless steel manufacturer, Dickson and Johnson Pty Ltd. When he finishes his apprenticeship he will return to Tonga where, with three brothers, he will offer a variety of metal trade services to Tonga and other Pacific Islands. • Ratu Apenisa Tuisavura, of Bau, Fiji, is now GI Tuisavura, the first of his race to join the US Army.
After completing basic training at Fort Ord, California, he was posted to Fort Gordon, Georgia, as a switch board operator and radio teletypist. © Mr Roger Burrow-Wilkes, Comptroller of Customs in the BSIP, has retired and gone home to England taking with him a letter of thanks from the Civil Servants’ Association.
The association thanked him for localising his department and putting himself out of a job. Mr Greene, the acting Comptroller is the only ex patriate left in the department. • Chief Nikolao Pula, first Samoan to be appointed Director of Education in American Samoa, has been awarded a “special certificate of achievement” by Stanford (California) University.
Chief Pula, who has been attached to the American Samoa educational system for 40 years, had studied at the university. • Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Fiji’s Prime Minister, returned to his old
university, the University of Otago in New Zealand in May and came away with a new cap and gown. He was given the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. © Professor R. G. Crocombe, Pro fessor of Pacific Studies at the Uni versity of the South Pacific, Suva, is one of two overseas consultants who will assist the PNG Commission of Inquiry into Land Matters. The other is Professor R. James, of the Faculty of Law at the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. He is a leading authority on African systems of land tenure.
Fiji-born Mr Thomas Bernard, 26 (pic tured), has been appointed Fiji rep resentative of Fletcher International, the export division of Fletcher Industries Ltd, NZ. Previously the company serviced Fiji (and other Pacific Islands) from its Auckland office.