Newspaper Article 2014 – Essence of a fine community head

OBITUARY

Ronald William (Ron) Ward: December 12, 1923-January 15, 2014

Essence of a fine community head

By Doug Laing
[email protected]

A funeral was held on Tuesday for former school principal Ron Ward, who dedicated himself to community service for almost 40 years after retiring from teaching following coronary attack.

Awarded the MBE in the 1989 New Year Honours for services to the community and outdoor education, Mr Ward died at his Summerset Retirement Village home last Wednesday, aged 90 and survived by wife of 65 years and fellow former teacher Estelle.

In 2005, he was accorded Napier’s highest civic honour – Freedom of the City – and it was at that time that his wife indicated the breadth of his interests, reckoning that at one stage he was on 14 committees simultaneously.

Mr Ward served in the RNZAF’s 6 Catalina Squadron in the Solomon Islands in World War II, alongside (Sir) Edmund Hillary, with whom he became long-time friends, characterised by their interest in the outdoors.

He and Estelle married in 1948, and they taught together at Kaitawa, a Lake Waikaremoana school, which Mr Ward was instrumental in turning into a children’s outdoor education centre in the mid-1960s, by which time he was a schools inspector in Napier.

He returned to teaching and from 1969 to 1976 was Principal of Wycliffe Intermediate (which Merged with Colenso High School to form William Colenso College, leaving a site now occupied by ‘Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Ara Hou).

Mr Ward spent almost 20 years as chairman of the Hawke’s Bay Mountain Safety Committee, helping establish the Mountain Radio Service.

But before he retired from that role he was developing roles in things more urban, in 1983 becoming  foundation chairman of Neighbourhood Watch, Napier’s trailblazing step in what is now known as  Neighbourhood Support.

He was the chairman for 26 years, but retained an active interest as a group co-ordinator at Summerset, where he and Estelle lived.

Among other roles and accolades were being made patron of the Royal Lifesaving Society in Hawke’s Bay, and a Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow.

Mr Ward was born in Auckland, and went to school in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and Poverty Bay communities of Whakatane, Wairata, Ormond and Waipoua, before going to Te Karaka District High, north of Gisborne.

His studies at Victoria University in Wellington were interrupted by the war, but they were completed extramurally.

Mr and Mrs Ward had two sons and a daughter – Tom, Lois and the late Bill. They also have six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Photo caption – Ron Ward