New Zealand school leaves legacy of leadership

When the Church College of New Zealand closes its doors later this year, when the youthful bustle falls away, the high school's enduring legacy of leadership will continue in the lives of its alumni.\"CC is a nursery of leadership that provided the country and the church so much,\" said Elder Lindsay T. Dil, a former area seventy. \"As I traveled through the area, it was amazing to see how many former CC students were in stake presidencies and bishoprics, not only throughout New Zealand but Australia.\"__IMAGE1__Of about 242 New Zealanders serving missions, 120 of them are graduates of the LDS Church-owned secondary school, according to statistics provided by David Walmsley, school principal from 1996 to 2005. Sixty percent of the Mormon stake presidents in New Zealand are former students of the school.Dil said his own experience at CCNZ —- he was a companion on high council visits as a student and often asked to speak — prepared him for a consecrated life of service in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.He became an area authority in 1995, and in 2002 was called as second counselor in the Australia/New Zealand Area Presidency. The area at the time included Papua New Guinea and many Pacific islands.\"We were the first Area Presidency whose members lived in different countries: I lived in Auckland, New Zealand, and the other two came from Sydney, Australia,\" Dil said. \"We met once a week using the webcam.\"From 2005 to 2008 he was a mission president in Ghana.\"The college exposed students to experiences that stretched us without even us knowing it,\" Dil said. One of those stretching experiences happened when he was a Sunday school president at his student ward, conducted opening exercises in the chapel, delivering impromptu remarks until he received a hand signal that the classrooms were cleared. Later, as an area seventy, Dil said Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve was once running late to get to a fireside in Auckland. Dil was to talk off the cuff until signaled — not by a gesture but by the apostle's arrival. I thought. \"This is what I used to do.\"__IMAGE2__Other alumni have found success in the more unexpected places.\"I had never contemplated for myself working in politics,\" said Rahui R. Katene, elected last year to New Zealand's Parliament as a Maori Party candidate.In December she addressed the Parliament as one of its newest members. \"The life of service and love of others is a lesson well learned as a member of my whanau (family) … and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\"The call to public service, Katene said, \"is a feeling more humbling than on election night, knowing people voted for you.\"Katene originally did not gain her party's nomination, but the party's nominee passed away, and she then was selected. She launched her campaign only four months before the general election. She said her campaign was unusual among New Zealand candidates because she did not raise funds through lotteries.__IMAGE3__\"I know it was Heavenly Father who put me in this position. It's a calling he's given me,\" Katene said. \"I'm here to serve him and serve his children.\"Some have skyrocketed professionally skyrocketed, like Alan G. Perriton in business. Perriton started as an assistant to Africa Middle East manager of General Motors Overseas Operation in 1972, has spent 34 years with General Motors Corp., straddling executive assignments between the United States and Asia, retiring in 2006 as head of mergers, acquisitions and new-business development for GM Asia Pacific. He is now president of the church's Korea Daejeon Mission.Other Church College graduates have shattered glass ceilings, becoming the first Maoris to enter professions long held from them.Gordon Matenga and Brandt Shortland, who graduated one year apart in the early '80s, are the first two Maori coroners in New Zealand. As coroners under a British-like system, they are judicial officers who direct the police, instruct forensic pathologists and, at times, hold coroner's courts at the conclusion of an investigation of a sudden or unexplained death. Matenga and Shortland went through a competitive process, securing their appointments among 14 full-time coroners in the country.Malie Tarsau is the first Maori female in New Zealand to graduate in optometry at Auckland University. \"It was a culture shock for me, I was the only Maori there. At Church College, there are brown faces everywhere,\" Tarsau said. \"We still live in a day of pioneers.\"Tarsau said prospects of being accepted into the program initially were grim, yet she felt calm and confident without having the \"assurance of being accepted.\"\"I went to the letter box everyday and there was nothing,\" Tarsau said. \"I knew if I were accepted I should have heard from the university by now, and so I said: 'OK, that's it. Obviously it's not meant to be.' \"In the 11th hour, the university called and asked Tarsau if she would fill a vacancy.\"It was a clear answer from the Lord and what direction he wanted me to go in,\" Tarsau said. \"I was filled with gratitude, knowing it wasn't my merits alone that did it.\"Tarsau said that her goals are to provide quality care for everybody and, especially, \"to make it a comfortable experience for the Maori.\" She also hopes to draw younger generations of Maori into optometry.\"CC educates predominantly ethnically Maori, giving them much more vision,\" said Walmsley. \"When the students capture that vision, then their potential becomes fulfilled and they become great leaders.\"