Editorial: From PM to escapee, it's place to be

I remember our bus pulling up at windy rugby grounds in Dannevirke, circa 1987.

"Don't take these guys lightly, they're tough boys, products of a tough town", the coach warned.

On exiting the bus we scoffed at the "predictable" sideways rain. We had them beat.

Eighty minutes and a 50-point lashing later, we boarded the bus dumbstruck. Dannevirke had meted out a bruising lesson in the ways of this Viking stronghold. We Heretaunga Plains schoolboys had succumbed to clumsy prejudice. Humiliation came at the sharp end of a Nordic axe.

I realised then the common vilification of this town was misplaced. Not to mention puzzling. Maybe it's because Dannevirke is a geographical orphan. Some attest it's in southern Hawke's Bay, others say it's a child of the Tararua District, while Wikipedia places it in the Manawatu-Wanganui region. That's why it's a tough town - it possesses a frontier spirit.

What a stellar few months it's had. On April 23, Tag Oil tapped the Tararua terroir in a flash of unaccustomed limelight.

Three days later, a local scooped a $14 million Lotto win.

Fourteen days following that, Tag Oil was high-fiving itself after finding oil indicative "mud-gas".

This week John Key himself rode in to inspect the boomtown - the first prime minister to visit in 29 years.

It comes as no surprise to me, then, that prisoner David Lothien fled his Corrections van as it passed through the town. He wanted in.

Of all places to escape on a 153-kilometre journey from Waikato to Hawke's Bay Prison, the inmate exited at Dannevirke. As a schoolboy, I'd have collapsed with mirth. But, given its newfound luck and my own growing fondness for this proud inland town on the up, I say nice choice, Mr Lothien.