Tongan Student Wins Final William Gearish Award
Vetekina Pau'u is the first Tongan to win the William Gearish Memorial prize and sadly she will also be the last recipient.
The award is for the student judged to have made the largest contribution to the wellbeing and reputation of his/her fellow agricultural students.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “When they started describing who the winner was I thought ‘that sounds like me’, but I never really thought it could be. I am honoured to get it, I still can’t believe it and I really appreciate it.”
Van Bussel grew up on a lifestyle block near Whanganui, always out on farms and enjoyed that life. At school he enjoyed accounting and economics so a degree in ag commerce was the obvious option for him.
“I didn’t have the farming experience a lot of the people coming in had. Coming from a lifestyle block definitely gave me a start and it also gave me an open mind. Going into an agricultural degree course sort-of meant that I wasn’t focused on one industry and I could experiment with a lot of industries and find a lot of knowledge throughout the different sectors.”
Van Bussel says he loved university life, not only the academic side but making friends and taking up the other opportunities Massey had to offer. He gained a wealth of knowledge which will equip him well in his new role as a rural banker with Westpac in Hastings.
Van Bussel is grateful to DairyNZ for his three-year scholarship.
“They helped me with my course fees and a lot of other things such as career days, meet-and-greet events and career development. It’s been invaluable.”
He says he’d like to see more emphasis on promoting agriculture as a career because of its importance to the NZ economy. Many Kiwis’ misconceptions about agriculture in the community need to be addressed.
