QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY HONOURS

? Lynette Flower, CNZM (Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit)
If you ask Lynette Stewart about her career highlight, don't expect to be told about her present role chairing the Northland DHB, or about being chief executive officer of Te Taitokerau Maori health provider (Mapo), an organisation of which she led the establishment.
For 62-year-old Mrs Stewart, a former nurse and social worker, one of the proudest moments of her long and distinguished career in the health sector is much simpler.
She was a young nurse working in a ward where there was a severely disabled child of three or four years of age.
That child had not responded to anybody, not even his own parents, yet he reached out to her and was absolutely receptive when she responded to him.
They formed a strong connection and she started carrying him on her hip as she did her rounds. It was a breakthrough for both child and nurse.
It was a moment in her life that she "utterly believes" taught her the importance of reaching out to others, particularly disabled children.
After having a family of her own Mrs Stewart began working with the Crippled Children's Society in Auckland.
"My life has really been about working with people," she said.
She has long considered her work a "privilege" so when she learned of her Queen's Birthday Honour, she was completely surprised.
"I absolutely love the work I'm doing in the health sector and it has been a real pleasure to get up in the morning and go to my job."
Mrs Stewart has held a string of high-level positions in the health sector.
She has been a member of the Northland DHB for six years, the past five as chairwoman, and helped start Te Taitokerau Mapo in 1996. She is also a member of the National Health Committee, the Public Health Advisory Committee and the Health Workforce Advisory Committee.
She was a member of the ACC Review Committee, the Treaty of Waitangi Public Information Advisory Programme Board, the Maori Rural Training Consortium and is a past president of the New Zealand Association of Social Workers.
She is proud to say she has just graduated with a master of management degree from Auckland University.
Mrs Stewart lives in Parua Bay.
She is married to Warren, has five children and nine grandchildren.
Mrs Stewart was born in Whangarei Hospital and grew up in Whananaki.
Her siblings include MP Winston Peters, Northland Regional Councillor Jim Peters and Northland Rugby Union chairman Whangarei lawyer Wayne Peters.
* New role as clergyman came upon retirement
? Rev Te Wiki Rawiri, QSM for community service.
The Rev Te Wiki Rawiri may have a glass of beer with friends to celebrate the QSM he was awarded for community service in the Queen's birthday honours.
But it won't be like the drinking sessions he enjoyed with his mates before he retired from work in the Affco freezing works at Moerewa in 1987 and became an Anglican priest.
"I had to learn to say when," 84-year-old Mr Rawiri said yesterday, chuckling over his memories.
He had been very surprised to find himself on the honours list. His late father, Tamaho Rawiri, had told him: "Boy, when you go anywhere expect nothing for nothing and you won't be disappointed," and he had taken the advice to heart.
It had stood him in good stead during his 16 years as a priest, particularly the past four since his retirement from the ministry when he had continued to care for the sick, officiated at baptisms and funerals and carry out other priestly duties, sometimes receiving koha for petrol, often quite happily settling for thanks.
Mr Rawiri said the QSM had made him feel as though someone appreciated what he had done for them.
Te Wiki was born at Whirinaki. He attended the Whirinaki Native School and left at 14. He worked digging drains and as a herd-tester before returning to milk cows for his father in Whirinaki in 1939. The next year he married Martha Baker from Ngawha.
"I was 18 years old and I can still hear a lady saying to me: `Just a kid! It won't last a week'," Mr Rawiri said. "But my wife died in 1997 after three children and 57 years of marriage."
He planned to move to Auckland in 1950 when friends persuaded him check out work at Affco Moerewa.
"I applied for a job thinking I would stay there a week, but I was a chamberhand there for 37 years."
When he retired at age 65, he wanted to go into the church -"I regret now that I didn't do it earlier in life."
He was ordained in 1990, becoming priest at St Saviour's Anglican Church in Moerewa. With help from his wife, he established and conducted choir singing, conducted services at churches all around the Bay, and visited sick and elderly in Kawakawa and Whangarei.
"When my wife died it knocked me back. I had never imagined she would die before me," Mr Rawiri said. "My younger daughter, Elizabeth, came back to live with me so I kept going with the church. But two years later my daughter died of heart failure and I told the bishop I was going to retire when I turned 80."
When that birthday rolled around in 2002, Mr Rawiri was taken off the roster for conducting Sunday services, but he kept accepting other church duties which came his way.
Mr Rawiri has five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
* Family support invaluable in achieving visions
? Murray Lints, QSM for public service.
As a teacher, Murray Lints advocated the pursuit of potential rather than excellence.
"Fulfillment of potential is a goal to which all can aspire. Excellence is something which only a few can achieve," he once said.
So, what does being awarded a QSM for public service say about his own achievements?
"That's a hard question," the 67-year-old says. "In some areas I almost achieved excellence but I don't know if I ever fully reached my potential."
Mr Lints, a former deputy principal of Kamo High School and principal of Whangarei Boys' High School, is well known for his involvement in education, sport and community groups.
His first foray into community work came 50 years ago when he represented his school Wanganui on the local hockey association.
"My own family's background was quite strong in community contribution, both my father and my mother were very community-oriented," he says.
He has been deeply involved in Northland Hockey since arriving in Whangarei to take up a position at Kamo High School in 1971.
Over the years Mr Lints has coached the Northland under-21 women's hockey team, chaired the Northland Hockey Management Committee and been president of the Northland Hockey Association. He was named leading administrator of the year for the New Zealand Hockey Federation in 1992. He is also one of the founders of Sport Northland and has been a secretary of CMAS, an organisation which provides guidelines in dive instruction.
He is chairman of the North Haven Hospice and a trustee of the Northland Mental Health Trust and a member of the Orangi Kaupapa Trust, a philanthropic trust which grants awards to people working for the community.
He has been president of the Northland branch of the New Zealand Educational Administration Society, foundation president of the Auckland Technical Administration Secondary Teacher Education Advisory Committee and secondary school reviewer for the Education Review Office.
"Teaching is a source of amazing job satisfaction.
"When I walk down the street in Whangarei here I'm often greeted by former students who tell me how well they're doing and that gives me a real buzz."
Mr Lints says none of his work would have been possible without the help of those who supported his visions and his family.
"I've been fortunate to have the unstinting support from wife, Effie, and my children Thierry, Tracy and Melanie.
"Whatever activity I've been involved in, I feel I've been able to make a difference," he says.
* Honour goes to fellow workers too - educator
? Claire Hurst, QSM for public service.
Seeing the damage sexually transmitted viruses cause to people's lives led Claire Hurst into education about the diseases.
Her dedication has seen the Bland Bay woman awarded a Queen's Service Medal for public Service in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
Mrs Hurst has been a nurse all her adult life and worked in a sexual health clinic in Auckland from 1989.
"It became apparent to me that there were a lot of people being diagnosed with viral sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and getting no information.
"It was stuffing their lives up and breaking relationships up," she said.
For more than 20 years she has contributed to the management of and education about viral STIs.
Mrs Hurst was the national co-ordinator of the New Zealand Viral Sexually Transmitted Education Foundation and the NZ Herpes Foundation.
Both organisations have become international models for the management of STIs.
She has also produced Guidelines for Medical Management of Genital Herpes in New Zealand and other educational material for medical practitioners and patients. She was also project manager of Doctors for Sexual Abuse care for five years until 1994 and administered the Children's Agenda for five years until 1997.
She feels humbled to receive the award, but says she accepts it on behalf of all the other people who she has worked with in her field.
"The rewarding part is realising that we can make so much of a difference to somebody's life by educating them and turning their lives around."
She said STIs are a huge problem in Northland with some small communities having as many as 43 percent of their young people infected with chlamydia.
Mrs Hurst moved to Northland from Auckland in 2003.
* Rewards come from work with families seeking help
? Patsy Henderson Watt, QSM for community service.
Sure, Patsy Henderson Watt is touched to have made the Queen's Birthday Honours list,
But for her, the real reward is her work as a family therapist.
"What an amazing job," she says of her role in helping children and families at Whangarei's Miriam Centre.
"Somebody has given you the honour of sharing their story with you, and allowing you to work with them while they make the change," she said.
"There are no goodies or baddies.
"Everybody's got their story. It's not about bad people who abuse their children, it's about people who are stuck and need support to change their lives."
The centre's 11 staff see 70-100 new people a month, mostly children and their families.
A trained nurse, Patsy came into family therapy "totally by mistake", and helped set up the centre in 1988.
She has enormous regard for her team of therapists, counsellors and social and community workers - "we cry and laugh a lot" - and other "grass roots" people helping families and kids.
"It's not a sad job. You hear sad things, but people are amazingly resilient.
"They want to be different. They don't want to hit their kids."
Patsy's father also earned a service honour in the 1970s. Three decades on, his daughter doesn't think she deserves to be singled out for her work.
She reckons there are "a million others" working to try to stop inter-generational violence and abuse.
Early intervention is the key, she says, and the Miriam Centre is spearheading a collaborative inter-agency mother/infant/family project to help break the cycles of violence.
It's not a glamorous job. Sometimes Patsy asks why she puts herself on the line for other people's children, but says one of the blessings her parents gave her was to not be afraid to challenge.
She comes from a family of "intrepid journeyors".
Her own mother went to university at 47, and Patsy is months away from finishing her masters in social work with a thesis on assessing risk and communicating with children.
Her work hasn't gone unnoticed. Last June she was part of the first collective nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
One of 1000 women from around the world, she was chosen for a campaign which sought to highlight the work of women working for justice.
She was also awarded a Distinguished Practitioner's Award for Just Practice by Unitec in 2003.
Today she hopes to be pottering around with family, at home outside Whangarei.
Patsy and her husband have been married for 34 years and have six children - some of whom have recently come back North to roost - and five grandchildren.
"We're just very, very lucky," she says.
In the words of her own mum: "Patsy, the world doesn't owe you a living."