Trinity schools celebrate milestones

Pictured in the Rathkeale College jubilee quad are (from left) principal Willy Kersten, student Josh Cowan, 17, deputy principal Grant Harper, and student Ryan Sheehan, 17. PHOTOS/LYNDA FERINGA

Big Weekend celebrations hit top gear at St Matthew's Collegiate School and Rathkeale College today as the Masterton schools respectively reach their centennial and jubilee milestones.

The centre of weekend festivities at Rathkeale College, where hundreds of former pupils, teachers and supporters will gather from across the country and beyond, will be a jubilee quadrangle boasting walls of tiles etched with the names of the 4448 boys who had enrolled at the school since its foundation in 1964, and four legend-bearing pillars.

The quadrangle is graced with mature trees and landscaped gardens, and is bordered by a classroom block, the school offices, the dining hall and gymnasium.

Principal Willy Kersten said the area was defined by the towering wooden Pillars of a Good Rathkeale Man, and the ten low walls upon which the thirty metres of etched tiles are fixed.

Wellington-based landscape designer and Rathkeale College old boy Hamish Moorhead had drawn up designs for the quadrangle almost three years ago and the pillar concept was first discussed four years earlier again, says deputy principal Grant Harper.

"What has been created is a central area and a heart to the school, a place where people may gather and meet."

The four-metre-tall pillars were fashioned from pine trees grown at Tinui and each is surrounded at the base by river boulders taken from the nearby Ruamahanga River, he said.

An etched plaque is mounted on each pillar that together epitomise a good Rathkeale man, Mr Harper said, "who is willing to step forward, is aware of those around him, will be at ease with himself, and will stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before him".

Mr Kersten said the jubilee quadrangle realises the aspirations and ambitions of the school and its community and supporters, including the Rathkeale College Friends' Association, and will be central to the weekend celebrations.

"Every boy who has enrolled in the 50-year history of Rathkeale College has his name on a wall. The idea was to have the jubilee weekend and have old boys come back and re-connect with where they had spent some defining years of their lives.

"I think the walls will create a huge amount of interest and names will be recognised and remembered, and the pillars encompass all of those attitudes and ideas we are trying to instil and develop and work with in our young men."

Meanwhile, gambolling pets yesterday helped launch centennial celebrations at St Matthew's Collegiate School at the re-enactment of the 1934 athletics day pet race held on the same track on the school sports field 80 years ago.

Together with Hadlow School, which will be 85 years old this year, St Matthew's and Rathkeale form the Trinity family of schools in Masterton.

Present St Matthew's students brought more than 60 dogs for the afternoon race yesterday with Year 9 student Frankie Finn-Reason and her dog, Digger, seizing honours as winners of the race.

Principal Kiri Gill, who this year replaced Erik Pedersen at his retirement after 30 years at the Masterton school, said:

"It's a fantastic day and lead-up to the centenary and the kids have been so actively involved in all the celebrations. It's just been really terrific.

"It's a big weekend for us, turning one hundred, and for me this certainly will be a year of firsts. I mean you get invited to birthday parties, but this is quite the birthday party to attend," Ms Gill said.

"The centenary committee have been working on this for two years. I've arrived to what has been a culmination of a lot of hard work. It will be wonderful."