Grame Olsen has been involved with Bush Districts Agricultural club for 53 years.
Grame Olsen has been involved with Bush Districts Agricultural club for 53 years.
Graeme Olsen’s love for agricultural days began as a young child.
Each year between 1945 and 1952 he would enter a lamb or calf for judging in his local school’s (Hamua) special day, with the exception of 1946, due to a broken leg.
His mother had accidentally driven over his leg while he was opening the gate after coming home from school.
Agricultural days were an important event in the rural school’s calendar.
An agricultural instructor from the Ministry of Education would visit local schools teaching children about raising and entering their animals. The children themselves would form a committee with a chairperson and secretary and be responsible for writing to judges asking for their expertise and also thanking them for their participation.
At Graeme’s school, with a roll of about 40 children, almost everyone would bring a lamb or calf.
There were no ribbons awarded in those days, but a certificate was given out to all competitors who did an adequate job of rearing their animal, and place getters would be rewarded with possibly a stripe of the appropriate colour on their certificate.
Graeme was placed first, second or third several times for his efforts in these agricultural days.
Home garden competitions were included in agricultural clubs and Graeme won for Champion Garden in 1950.
One other aspect of agricultural clubs was the inclusion of home garden competitions. Children would plan and tend to their gardens, and these would be judged in the autumn with a judge visiting individual children’s homes to assess their work. In 1950 Graeme won an award for Champion Garden and was given a model wooden boat as a prize.
After leaving high school Graeme attended the “Godfrey Bowen Shearing School” which was associated with Massey University, where he was taught the art of his profession. He was also involved with the Young Farmers Club from 1957 and this is where he learnt a lot about stock judging of wool and meat.
Graeme learnt the art of shearing at a school.
Graeme married Judith Corlett in 1962 and they milked cows together for Ollie Malcolm at Newman for a couple of years.
In 1965, Graeme in partnership with his father bought their current farm at Ballance. Their children Jeff, Tony and Brenda arrived and Graeme’s involvement with lamb judging began in 1970 when his oldest child started school.
In the early days, the local combined school’s agricultural club was the Pahiatua club but in the early 1970s it combined with the Eketāhuna and Woodville clubs to form The Bush Districts Boys & Girls Agricultural Club.
There were around 25 schools that contributed animals to the annual agricultural day. Graeme would often be asked to judge at the local school’s pet days prior to Bush, as well as being a lamb judge for the Bush Districts Club days.
Around 180 – 200 children from various schools would enter their animals for judging.
Graeme has been involved with the Bush Districts Club for the last 53 years, either as a judge, a committee member and more recently as Patron.
The Bush Districts Boys & Girls Agricultural Club cannot thank Graeme enough for his many years of dedicated service to the club.
