Miss Ngaire Karaka, an Auckland pianist, won a notable distinction recently when she was one of eight piano students, chosen from many applicants from all over New Zealand, who attended Master Classes with the famous pianist Lili Kraus. Ngaire also plays the double bass, playing this instrument in the Junior Symphony Orchestra (she is the only Maori to belong to it). Later, she hopes to go to London to further her music studies. She is a teacher at Panama Road School, Otahuhu, where she takes all the music in the school and has a choir of 40 children. Her mother, Constance Kareakihi Karaka, and her father, Mr Nohowaha Uri Karaka, of the Ngati Paoa tribe, live in Auckland. Mr Karaka is well known in the Auckland Province for his work as a trade union organiser. ? The entertainer Rim D. Paul, just back from a tour of Australia, Spain and Britain with the Maori Hi Fives No. 2 band, says he had a wonderful time overseas, but the thing he most enjoyed was getting together with other Maoris in London. Rotorua-born Rim (his offstage name is Denis) first became interested in entertainment as a pupil at Te Aute College, and started singing professionally with his father's band in Rotorua.

NGARIMU V.C. ESSAY CONTEST

Some Winning Entries The Ngarimu V.C. Essay Competition, held annually, is open to all Maori school children. The Ngarimu V.C. and 28th (Maori) Battalion Memorial Scholarship Fund Board awards eight prizes for the best essays submitted; prizes go to the best essay written in Maori, and the best one written in English, in each of these four sections: Forms I and II; Forms III and IV; Form V; and Form VI. In the 1963 competition the winners were as follows:— Essays in English Forms I and II: Hinemihi P. Kingi, Kuratau Maori School, Tokaanu. Forms III and IV: Ngahuia Gordon, Western Heights High School, Rotorua. Form V: Janet Yates, Feilding Ag. High School, Feilding. Form VI: Victoria Nathan, Queen Victoria School, Auckland. Essays in Maori Forms I and II: No essays submitted in this class. Forms III and IV: Whaia Rihari, St Peter's Maori School, Auckland. Form V: Kate Wharerimu, Auckland Girls' Grammar School, Auckland. Form VI: Tamihana K. King, Te Aute College, Hawkes Bay. The subjects for the essays were chosen by the judges of the competition. On the next few pages we publish three of the winning entries.

? For several years past the Maori Purposes Fund Board has made a grant of £5000 to the Department of Education in Auckland for educational purposes. This annual grant is now being paid to the Maori Education Foundation. Applications for assistance from this money should be made on the Foundation's standard application from and sent direct to the Foundation.