People

Sir Emmet McDermott, a former Lord Major of Sydney, has been elected chairman of the Australian branch of the Foundation for the peoples of the South Pacific. The foundation is a voluntary organ isation which works solely for the welfare of the people in the Pacific region. The headquarters of the foundation is in New York.

Mr Jim Reid, a New Zealander, has been appointed manager of the new resort hotel in the Cook Is lands, the Rarotongan. Mr Reid gained much of this experience in the hotel trade with the Tourist Hotel Corporation of NZ. In 1970, he spent six months in Melbourne at the Southern Cross Hotel on an ex change basis. He has managed THC resort hotels, the Wanaka and the Waitomo.

German-born Father Bernard Franke, Roman Catholic parish priest of Matupit and Rabaul celeb tated his golden jubilee as a priest on August 7. Born in the small coun try town of Warendorf in Germany.

Fr Franke. who is 74. has been in New Britain since 1928. The people of Rabaul and Matupit celebrated his jubilee with masses at Matupit and at the cathedral of St Francis Xavier in Rabaul. Those who know the work he has done in his near half century in New Britain call Father Franke “the Living Mira cle”. He has come near to death a few times including an occasion when he escaped execution by Japenese soldiers by only a few hours.

Mr Holme Kavora, from lokea village in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea, has been ap pointed assistant to the Air Niugini industrial relations manager, Mr B.

Croft. Mr Kavora received his sec ondary education at Slade, War wick, in Queensland, and in 1974 joined Air Niugini as operations controller at Lae. He was later transferred to Port Moresby where he held the posts of aircraft schedul ing officer and charters superinten dent before taking up his latest post.

Charles Pupu, the top engineering graduate for Air Niugini in 1976, suffered severe spinal injuries and had his right leg broken in a traffic accident just 17 days after gradua tion. He was paralysed from the waist down. Air Niugini later flew him to Brisbane for treatment in a hospital spinal injuries unit. He had started on a rehabilitation program me when he again broke his right leg, which, according to doctors “set him back six months”. Doctors were also forced to stop his rehabilitation programme for three months. Apart from that, however, Charles was happy and generally in good condi tion. Charles was one of Air Niugini’s first 10 aircraft and airframe graduates. They all gradu ated together after a five-year course at Lae Technical College.

Mr Norman L. Santos has been appointed general manager in Guam and Micronesia for RCA Global Communications Inc, succeeding Mr William A. Klatt, who is return ing to a new appointment in the US.

Mr Santos was manager of RCA Globcom Operations, Lodi, Califor nia, before his latest appointment.

He joined RCA as a technician in 1961 and has held a number of im portant positions with that com pany. He served in the US Air Force from 1952 to 1961. His favourite re creation is tennis.

Mrs Marina Oei Terry, 42, a Palauan woman who has been living in Holland for 14 years, has asked the Micronesian Government for permission to return home. She said in a letter to the government that she and her eight children were cons tantly falling ill in the “cold and wet” Dutch climate. Her request is being supported by the Palau legislature. Mrs Terry is a de scendant of inhabitants of Palau’s Sonsoral Island who were shifted to Dutch-administered West New Guinea in the 19th century by the famous American trader. Captain David O’Keefe.

Mr Vishnu Prasad, 45. has retired from the Fiji Civil Service to settle in Australia. He was awarded the CBE in the 1977 Queens Birthday honours list. Mr Prasad was secre tary of the Fiji Public Service'Com mission when he retired. Before that he was counsellor at the Fiji United Nations Mission in New York.

Strenuous physical activity is not the first thought that springs to mind when one thinks of members of the Australian Parliament. But Senator John Knight and Mr David Thom son, MHR, got a bit of it when their Land Rover became bogged on a muddy track at Temaiku, Tarawa, during their July visit to the Gilbert Islands.

Their efforts to help get the vehi cle clear merited a frontpage picture in the Gilberts newspaper, Atoll Pioneer. The men were part of a group of five Australian MPs who made an extensive tour of Pacific countries during the midyear parlia mentary recess.

William Angus Sword of Pava'ia’i, American Samoa, has become the first American Samoan to graduate from Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana. He took a Bachelor of Science degree.

Guest speaker at the ceremonies during which he received his degree was no less than President Jimmy Carter, who used the occasion for a major address. Mr Sword is now working in Seattle and hopes to get his master's degree in engineering over the next two years. He then plans to return to American Samoa.

Mr and Mrs Terry Herringe have for many years taken care of New Hebridean people, children and adults, before and after medical operations in Sydney. They recently paid a visit to the New Hebrides, going to Malekula, Santo, Nguna, Fila island and Tanna to see people they had looked after in Sydney.

Peter and Rose Barker, who have had more than 10 years experience in Pacific hotels have found the call of the Islands too strong. They re cently gave up the licence of the Country Comfort Hotel, Batemans Bay, on the New South Wales south coast, to go to Vila to manage the Solaise Hotel. They became well known to Pacific travellers when they managed the Otintai Hotel at Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, and the Isa Lei and Grand Pacific Hotels in Suva.

A touch of Samoana in Sydney-Samoans living in Australia, who staged a party in Sydney to celebrate the 15th birthday of independent Western Samoa. Taofi Atoa, the party organiser, is kneeling on the right

The Solomon Islands have a new Deputy Governor, Mr Myles P. Preston (pictured), who began his career in the Royal Navy, at one stage serving in the Admiralty He then joined the Commonwealth Office and has served in India, Nigeria, Uganda and Indonesia In 1969, he was a member of the National Defence College, Canada, and later became head of the Caribbean Department Mr Preston left this last position to become Solomons’ Deputy Governor He is married with an adult son and a teenage daughter