When Larissa Meredith won a Karen Aim scholarship five years ago, she said to Karen's parents Peggy and Brian that she would personally deliver the finished artwork to Karen's home of Orkney off the northern coast of Scotland.
And while she says she doubted that the Aims believed her, Larissa, 22, will fulfil that promise today when she and her parents, Jane and Kim Meredith, arrive in Orkney for a four-day visit.
They will be bringing with them a beautiful handcrafted lantern made by Larissa from rimu veneer and acrylic, an artwork she crafted to fulfil one of the conditions of the Karen Aim Memorial Art Scholarship.
Karen Aim, 26, was a backpacker from the Orkney Islands, who was living and working in Taupo when she was fatally bashed by teenager Jahche Broughton as she walked home from a night out in 2008.
After her death, the Karen Aim Memorial Art Scholarship was set up in Taupo, and each year it awards $2000 to a Taupo college student to study art at tertiary level. Each recipient is asked to produce an artwork for the scholarship by the end of their art studies.