Rangi Ruru centenary

Press, 24 March 1984, Page 6

Rangi Ruru centenary

A week-end of celebrations will be held at Rangi Ruru Girls’ School in Hewitts Road next week to commemorate the boarding house’s centenary. Centennial events will begin on Friday, March 30, when there will be an open day at the school. The Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, will attend assembly and inspect the school in the morning. The boarding house, which was built by Mr A. E. G. Rhodes and his family in 1884, and originally named Te Koraha, will open for inspection from 11 a.m. the next day. In the afternoon there

will be a garden party, at which the Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay, will bless the house. In the evening, a ball will be held in the dining room of the boarding house. The school’s principal, Mrs Raywyn Adam, said yesterday that the dining room was a particularly suitable venue for the ball, as it had a sprung floor. This room was used for many society balls in the days when the Rhodes family lived there. The celebrations will end on Sunday, April 1, with a thanksgiving service on the lawn in front of the house, followed by a family barbe-

cue. The 184 boarders at the school, 95 of whom live in Te Koraha, would get the week-end off, but had been encouraged to take part in the celebrations with their parents, said Mrs Adam. The girls who live in Te Koraha were mainly thirdformers and fourth-formers, with some seventh-formers, she said. The founders of the school, the Gibson sisters, bought the house and the estate from the Rhodes family in 1923. They used the house for boarders and some rooms were used for classes until the 19605.