50 years ago

❚ Voters throughout Taranaki electorates chose later drinking hours by an almost overwhelming majority in a national referendum on licensing hours and the national vote saw an end to 50 years of 6pm hotel closing.

❚ A valuable pedigree Tamworth sow and a Tamworth pig were slaughtered before being stolen from the Stratford High School farm, the farm manager, Mr Gordon Dodds, saying the sow was valued at about $140.

❚ The mother of New Zealand representative golfer Glennis Taylor, Mrs l Taylor of New Plymouth, scored a hole-in-one using a seven iron on the 16th hole at the Westown Golf Club’s course.

❚ Membership of the New Plymouth Young Men’s Christian Association stood at 1107 compared with 411 the previous year, the president, Mr Magnus Hughson, told the annual meeting.

❚ The Taranaki Rugby Football Union’s annual award of the Alf Bayly Memorial Scholarship, taking into account qualities of leadership, sportsmanship and rugby ability, went to an Opunake High School pupil, Brian Quin, a Taranaki primary school representative.

❚ A New Plymouth builder, Mr A T Collins (20), won the Bank of New South Wales travel award for being the best apprentice to finish his training in New Zealand in the past year, and he was entitled to spend a year in Australia furthering his building studies.

❚ Winning a Monte Carlo contest spread over six weeks at Stratford’s danceland gained for two couples, Mr Colin West (Inglewood) and Miss Catherine Piper (New Plymouth) and Mr Roger Birch (New Plymouth) and Miss Mary Barclay (Stratford) a weekend in Dunedin.

❚ A New Plymouth soldier, Lieutenant G Cormack (32), was named as a member of the first replacement group for the medical services team operating in the Binh Dinh province of South Vietnam.

❚ Membership of the Taranaki centre of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association had risen by 84 to 1225 during the season, the president, Mr I S Russell, reported to the AGM.

❚ An almost unknown Stratford rider, 17-year-old Ray Wisnewski, won the 100-mile professional Taranaki road cycle race around Mt Egmont at his first attempt.

❚ Playing splendidly over the second nine holes, New Plymouth’s Mrs J Urbahn came from behind to win the Taranaki women’s silver division matchplay championship at the Ngamotu links, New Plymouth.

❚ Movies: Double Trouble (State), Elvis Presley, John Williams and Yvonne Romain; One Of Our Spies Is Missing (Hawera Regent), Robert Vaughan and David McCallum; The Blue Max (Stratford Plaza), George Peppard, James Mason and Ursula Andress; Nevada Smith (Mayfair), Steven McQueen.

❚ A New Zealand Speedway Promotions Association embracing the country’s four major speedways – Auckland, Napier, New Plymouth and Christchurch – was formed at a meeting in Palmerston North and New Plymouth’s Mr D Rutherford was elected president.

❚ A teacher at St Mary’s Diocesan School, Stratford, from 1960 to

1964, Miss R F Robertshawe, was appointed headmistress of the Waikato Diocesan School for Girls.

❚ Four of New Zealand’s top cheesemaking awards – for purity and finish, highest average grade, highest points for purity and finish for rindless cheese graded Port Taranaki and most improved grade in any production area for the 1966-67 season, went to the manager of the coastal Taranaki Warea Co-operative Dairy Co Ltd, Mr VG G Miles.

❚ 35 Years Ago: Taranaki’s Felix O’Carroll and Colin Cooper in Maori rugby team to tour Wales; Taranaki rugby team beats Wanganui 31-13 at New Plymouth; Ken Holyoake (New Plymouth) wins Taranaki 54-hole strokeplay golf title.

❚ 25 Years Ago: 48-hour nurses’ strike hits Taranaki hospitals; Faye Lawrence (Manaia) named Mrs 1992 at Hawera Dual Extravaganza; Taranaki beats Manawatu 64-28 at Rugby Park, New Plymouth; road safety report says accidents cost Taranaki $96.7

❚ million in 1991.