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Two stalwarts of the Whangateau community were honoured at a recent dinner held to mark their many decades of service to local committees and organisations.
Hugh McKergow was presented with a korowai and a pounamu and Richard Gerard a pounamu for their respective roles with the Whangateau Hall committee, Whangateau Residents and Ratepayers Association (WRRA) and Whangateau HarbourCare, among others.
McKergow is finally slowing down after being actively involved right across the Whangateau community and beyond since moving there more than 60 years ago.
Now in his 80s, he has carried out numerous roles and put in countless hours of voluntary work, including being chair of the WRRA and the Big Omaha Wharf Restoration Society, and getting the old bridge between Ashton and Birdsall Roads restored.
McKergow has also planted many native trees, collected rubbish at the wharf and beyond, and ensured that dog waste bag-holders at the domain are kept topped up.
Coming in not far behind, Gerard has been chair of the hall committee for 30 years and a member of
Whangateau HarbourCare for the same amount of time. He has now stepped down from his role as hall chair to take up the HarbourCare chair, though he is staying on the hall committee to support new chair Max Wunderlich.
He is also active on the committee of Leigh Tennis Club, Warkworth Area St John and the Leigh Community Patrol.
Gerard said they both did what they did for the love of the tiny coastal community and said it had been a privilege to have helped maintain and enhance the historic Whangateau Hall over the years.
