Agriculture classmates from the former Ashburton Technical High School have joined forces to boost funds set aside for an Ashburton College scholarship.
Twenty-six former classmates chipped in a total of $10,000 to boost an existing scholarship fund from the school.
It saw the inaugural Ashburton College Bill Corbett Agricultural Scholarship and Trophy, named after their former teacher, awarded this year to year 12 student Lachie Jones.
He received a trophy and $1500 for costs with further agricultural study.
Philip Crozier, from the class of 1961, said the fund was managed by Advance Ashburton Community Foundation.
The classmates had wanted to set up their own agricultural scholarship but were unable to raise the necessary start up funds.
Crozier said he was approached by former student Gordon Clinton, who attended the technical high school’s general course from 1947 to 1949.
‘‘He put the proposition to me about how we could get an agricultural scholarship with our class putting $10,000 into the Advance Ashburton fund,’’ Crozier said.
Clinton said the fund was sitting at $90,000 but needed another $10,000 before it could generate another scholarship for agriculture, which was recently listed as a trade.
The 1961 class rallied, and the funds were raised.
The scholarship and trophy were presented to Lachie by Brian Davidson, also a former student from the Ashburton Technical High School ag class of 1961.
Bill was represented at the prizegiving by his wife, Patricia, as well as five former members of the 1961 class.
Gordon, who went on to work in a building hardware store for 35 years, said seed funds for the Ashburton Technical High School Old Pupils Trade Scholarship were from a school jubilee event in 1962.
At the time former students Alex McLennan, Alan Thomas, George Aitken and John Mathieson used them to set up the trades scholarship but decided a total of £25,000 or ($50,000) would ensure it was self supporting.
Gordon, who took over the funds management in later years, said former students from the high school were approached to help boost the funds and ‘‘the response was outstanding’’.
‘‘We drafted a letter and sent it to everybody we could think of men only because ladies weren’t involved in those sorts of trades in those days. We hand delivered them to everybody (within the town) to save money. We posted some out.’’
The first trades scholarship of $1000 was awarded to Matthew Scammell in 2019. Since then they had presented a further six scholarships. Some initially of $1250 each, and last year it was raised to $1500.
Gordon handed the funding management over to Advance Ashburton Community Foundation a couple of years ago. Since then, the pot had grown and sat at $90,000 but needed $10,000 to allow an additional scholarship to be funded, he said.
This year two scholarships of $1500 were awarded; the other, the Ashburton Technical High School Old Pupils Trade Scholarship, went to year 12 student Josh King.
