2014 Reunion 1947-1948

The 1947-48 diploma class gathering, organised by Patricia Corbett, wife of alumnus Bill Corbett (DipAg 1948-49), 5-7 March 2014.

Lincoln University welcomed over a dozen members of the 1947-1948 diploma classes, plus wives and partners, for a campus visit and afternoon tea as part of their self-arranged reunion over 5-7 March. Patricia Corbett, wife of alumnus Bill Corbett, volunteered to do the organising and administration.

Alumni taking part in the reunion came from all over the South Island, such as John Dickson of Invercargill, Roger and Tricia Preston of Winton and Syd and Jenny Bryant of Riversdale in the south, to Russ and Mary Fitzgerald of Takaka and Ron and Doreen Hester of Blenheim in the north.

Vice-Chancellor Dr Andrew West was listened to attentively as he updated the visitors on changes and developments at the University and the visitors in return provided Alumni and Development Office staff with many stories and accounts of life at Lincoln in the late 1940s.

Office staff made use of the opportunity to gather some oral history about Lincoln from group members. In particular the visitors were able to provide date and identity details of a photo that is often used generically by the University in heritage related material. It appears on the back cover of the current edition of Landforms (see accompanying picture) and fortuitously it turned out to date from the visiting alumni’s own era - 1948.

Those identified in the photo include Lindsay Davies, brothers Ross and Graham McCarlie, Herb Familton, Geoffrey Warren, Gordon Brooks, Maurice May and Ross Stuart, whose wife Pam was in the visiting group.