TE NUPEPA O TE TAIRAWHITI MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2020 HOME-DELIVERED $1.90, RETAIL $2.20 INSIDE TODAY PAGE 6 PLEA FOR HAIR HELP TODAY Strength in PAGE 3 ....GONE ON Mateenbar THURSDAY PAGE 2 ....FROM MISSING KIWI’S FAMILY WAIKOHU WINNERS The sign says it all as the champagne is sprayed and arms are raised by GT Shearing Waikohu players after securing Poverty Bay premier club rugby’s Lee Bros Shield title on Saturday. The men from Te Karaka — coached by Ra Broughton — defeated East Coast Farm Vets YMP 27-20 in an excellent final at Rugby Park. It was the second premier crown in the history of the club. With Covid-19 restrictions in place, crowd numbers were limited and several thousand watched the final live online via Turanga FM, including New Zealand Warriors centre Peta Hiku, who hails from Whatatutu and attended Te Karaka School. Hiku was among the hundreds to post comments during the final. More on the final on the back page. Picture by Paul Rickard Search reveals 134 C Company soldiers did not get their medals; descendants encouraged to claim them THE never-received war medals of soldiers in the I’ve stood face-to-face with them and said, ‘hey, War Maori Battalion’s C Company are to be claimed 75 did you know we’re doing this kaupapa and your years later. dad hasn’t received his medals?’ They just couldn’t Lawyer David Stone has found the names of 134 believe it.” soldiers from the company who never received their Mr Stone will be at the C Company Memorial medals. House in Gisborne from Wednesday, September 9, He has put a call out on to Friday, September 11, with social media, asking their forms for descendants to fill medals descendants to come forward Mr Stone will be at the out if they wish to claim a and claim them. C Company Memorial House medal. “We put the post out He is working with the there because I didn’t really in Gisborne from Wednesday New Zealand Defence Force know where to start, and to Friday with forms for to organise a formal ceremony the response has been really descendants to fill out if they at which the medals will be overwhelming. returned. “People are coming forward wish to claim a medal. Mr Stone’s journey to never saying, ‘that’s my dad’, ‘that’s recovering the names my uncle’, or ‘that’s my began during the Waitangi grandfather’, or they’re tagging their relations,” he Tribunal’s Military Veterans Kaupapa Inquiry a said. year and a half ago. “I met a daughter of one of those soldiers and she He was there to present evidence about his great said her dad died in 1991 and she had no idea that uncle, Private Dooley Swann, from Manutuke, who he had medals. also never received his war medal. received “I’ve had fully-grown men burst into tears when CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 GISBORNE RUATORIA WAIROA Local News ...... 1-5 Business ............10 Television ...........23 Sport ............ 28-32 Births & Deaths ...4 Opinion ..............11 Racing ................24 Weather .............31 9 771170 043005 TOMORROW National ..6-9, 21-22 World............ 12-14 Classifieds ........25 > 2 NEWS The Gisborne Herald • Monday, September 7, 2020 Mum to lose locks for Wig We d n e s d a y . o n T h u r s d a y AFTER finishing nearly three years of cancer resilience as a family. treatment, Gisborne student Lucas Sigvertsen Now Lucas has reached the end of his wants to celebrate being back with his friends at treatment and is back to his energetic self, the Awapuni School. family can finally get much-welcomed normality What better way than to watch mum Maree back in their lives. Donaldson and his teachers shave their heads for Not surprisingly, they have been looking for the Child Cancer Foundation’s Wig Wednesday a chance to properly commemorate the turning . on Thursday. point. The event was moved because the school “We really wanted to celebrate Lucas finishing was hosting the inter-school cross-country treatment in a positive way with the whole on Wednesday. However, that has since been community. Wig Wednesday came along at the cancelled due to Covid-19 level restrictions. perfect time,” says Maree. The school decided to stick with Thursday as On Thursday, Awapuni School, is going all-out. its Wig Wednesday. It is holding a mufti day when Awapuni will be among the the kids can style their hair in thousands of Kiwis across the We really wanted weird, wacky and wonderful country — schools, companies, to‘ celebrate Lucas ways. and community groups — to Lucas’s class will be making wear a wig, shave heads or finishing treatment hats and wigs out of recycled style a funky hair-do to raise in a positive way materials to wear on the day. money for the Child Cancer with the whole The highlight is sure to be a Foundation. full school assembly (socially- More than $100,000 was community distanced, of course), at which raised from the event last year —Lucas Sigvertsen’s’ Maree’s hair will be shaved by to help the foundation in its mother Maree Donaldson one of the teachers. vital role helping people like To make things even more Lucas. exciting, for every $500 raised In late 2017 the muscles on the right side of on their everydayhero fundraising page, a Lucas’s face began to droop but as it wasn’t a teacher will also have to shave their head. typical symptom of lymphoma, doctors thought So far three teachers are already lined up for he might just have a sinus infection – or even the clippers but Maree and Lucas want to see as Bell’s palsy. many as possible join the fun. Following a month of trips back and forth For Maree, their Wig Wednesday plans are from their home in Gisborne to Auckland’s not just about celebrating Lucas’s milestone but Starship Hospital, including a full-body MRI scan also being able to give back to an organisation and kidney biopsy in early January, the family that has stood beside them throughout their were stunned to find out Lucas had acute T-cell experience with child cancer. lymphoblastic lymphoma. “Our family support coordinator came to see The six-year-old got his first dose of us in Starship when Lucas was first diagnosed chemotherapy the next day. and came back every week with coffee and Throughout the two-and-a-half years of muffins for a chat,” says Maree, Lucas’s treatment, he and Maree often had to “They were always there for us as a great adult stay at Starship for weeks at a time, meaning ear to talk to who wasn’t a medical person.” his three siblings were looked after by Maree’s As for the head shave, Maree doesn’t take parents back in Gisborne. getting rid of her hair lightly. The local community also banded together to “I’ve had long hair my whole life so this is a HAIR CHOP FOR CANCER: Maree Donaldson is preparing to farewell her naturally help the family, providing a lot of support to the pretty big deal for me. red curly hair, now dyed blue, ahead of her head shave on Thursday week to show kids while Lucas and Maree were away. “I really want to make it a success and to be support for children battling cancer. She is pictured with son Lucas and his sister It was tough having to miss out on a lot able to say thank you to an organisation that has Niamh Sigvertson, who think it’s a brave move. Lucas has undergone more than 700 of milestones while she and Lucas were in helped my family immensely over the last three procedures since being diagnosed with acute T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma and has Auckland, but Maree says it showed their years.” accumulated a cancer bead to represent each one. Picture by Liam Clayton COUNTRY’S Second warmest for Gisborne WARMEST since official records began WINTER MOMENT CAPTURED: Gisborne’s second warmest winter day on record looked like this (above). This picture of Young Nick’s Head was taken by Brendon Lennane just before sunset on Monday, August 31, when the mercury reached 23 degrees. Left, Herald photographer Liam Clayton snapped this shot at Kaiaua Beach on August 30. The district experienced its second-warmest winter on record, with an average mean daily temperature of 11.1 degrees. GISBORNE has just experienced winter temperatures. Niwa’s seven-station its second warmest winter on “We had in parts of the country temperature series, which began record, official Niwa climate data more high pressure than normal, in 1909, shows the 2020 winter shows. which did lead to some more extra was 1.14 degrees above average, Niwa meteorologist Ben Noll sunny days than normal, and nudging the 2013 winter from the said the mean daily temperature Gisborne may have been on the top spot, which was 1.08 degrees for Gisborne over the winter fringes of that high pressure from above average. months was 11.1 degrees, making time to time. This year’s result also means it the region’s second-warmest at 1 “Also, in the background, we seven of the 10 warmest winters degree above average. have climate change, which is on record in New Zealand have “Records in Gisborne began in basically a long-term tail-wind for occurred since the year 2000. 1905 so it’s quite a long historical our temperatures.” Seventeen locations observed record we have for Gisborne.” It was also the second warmest record-breaking mean winter Mr Noll said the 23 degrees winter on record in Wairoa, which temperatures, with an additional recorded in Gisborne on August 31 averaged 11.4 degrees — 1.6 53 locations ranking within their was the second-warmest maximum degrees above average.