Some of Waipa’s excellence award winners, including, from left, Cambridge’s Georgie Edgecombe, Nu’umoe Duffy, Leah Belfield (Te Awamutu), as well as (from right) Charlisse Leger-Walker and Ella Higgins.
Cambridge’s top students were recognised for their outstanding efforts and achievements throughout 2018 at the 17th annual Waipa Youth Awards held last week at Te Awamutu College. 78 awards were handed out amongst the 120-plus young people that gathered from throughout the district. It was the highest number of nominations in any Waipa Youth Awards.
Waipā mayor Jim Mylchreest said it was a good indicator that the future of the “home of champions” was in very good hands.
“Every year I’m blown away by the work our young people are doing for themselves and the community,” he said. “This year we had 50 nominations in the sports category alone which says great things about the quality of our young athletes.”
Cambridge High School’s 2018 Proxime Accessit student Sam Bain was awarded the certificate of excellence for academic achievement, and received an NZQA Scholarship award for gaining four scholarships. Sam was one of four current and 2018-graduate students from Cambridge High to achieve an academic award, with Ashley Barea, Josh Hogan and Sam Hogan receiving Merit academic awards.
Another Cambridge High School student Molly Goodeve, a well-known country musician in Cambridge, was awarded the certificate of excellence for arts and culture. Earlier this year Molly was awarded honours of excellence in the running for Young New Zealander of the Year, and won the supreme award at last year’s New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards.
Miranda McArthur, of St Peter’s School, was also awarded a certificate of excellence for arts and culture. In November she won six categories at the New Zealand Open Dance Championships and was selected to represent New Zealand at the Australian Dance Sports Championships.
St Peter’s student Charlisse Leger-Walker, a member of the Commonwealth-bronze winning 2018 Tall Ferns Basketball team, was awarded Excellence in Sport. She captained the New Zealand Under 17 basketball team and attended the World Champs in Belarus among several other achievements.
Last year’s two head girls at Cambridge’s high schools, CHS head girl Nu’umoe Duffy and St Peter’s head girl Georgie Edgecombe, were awarded for Excellence in Leadership. Cambridge High School’s current head girl Ella Higgins and fellow student Tessa Winter were awarded the excellence in community service awards. The Multi Achiever Award went to former St Peter’s student Victoria Hos.
