Former UNRE lecturer visits

From left are Graeme and Philippa Hockey, and Dale and Belinda Rogers

Papua New Guinea University of Natural Resources & Environment’s Vudal Campus recently welcomed a former lecturer who once taught at the institution 40 years ago. 

Graeme Hockey from Darwin, Australia, who lectured in cattle farming in 1970 when the institution was known as Vudal Agricultural College, visited the campus with wife Philippa.

Welcoming them, University registrar Henry Gioven said it was good to have former staff of the institution return to see the progress it had made since then.

University vice chancellor Prof Philip Siaguru gave the visitors a presentation of the progress of the institution and its future development plans.

Mr Hockey said he was impressed with the inspiring presentation and the fact that the state asset had been developed and is being looked after.

He said he had not known what to expect because he had left when many parts of the campus grounds were still covered with thick bushes and kunai grass.

Mrs Hockey, who used to work at the institution as personal assistant to the then principal Syd Saville, said she was particularly impressed about the developments that had taken place at Vudal over the last 40 years because the infrastructure at many of the other places they had visited had been neglected.

“Some of the places we went back to didn’t have anything anymore and it was sad to see that,” she said.

The Hockeys said they were proud to be part of the history of the university that was still expanding.

Mr Hockey arrived in PNG in 1967. In 1968 and 1979 he worked as a Department of Primary and Industry officer at Warangoi.

In 1970, he joined the institution as a lecturer specialising in cattle farming, where he met and married wife Philippa. In 1971, they moved to Kagua in Southern Highlands and from 1972 to 1973 they were based in Popondetta.

Mr Hockey returned to Darwin in 1973 to help his father to take care of the family’s cattle farm. In 1977, he joined Northern Territory government and worked for 25 years before he retired.

Currently he works with a tour company and also does volunteer work in East Timor.

The Hockeys were accompanied by Philippa’s sister Belinda and her husband Dale Rogers.