THE RUNNING MAN: Keith Scholes (centre), supported by Rod Hibbert (right) and Peter Heffernan, racks up another lap of the Nelson-Cameron-Hansen roads circuit during his 24-hour run ro raise money for Palliative Care in 1991. Keith completed 205 kilometres — just one of the many distance feats he achieved over his lifetime, including 133 marathons. Herald file picture
Keith Scholes completed over 130 marathons, from Rotorua to Rotterdam, in his lifetime.
He ran 205 kilometres non-stop around a Gisborne block for 24 hours for charity.
He circumnavigated New Zealand's largest lake twice (320km) in the 2004 Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge.
He completed the Lake Waikaremoana trail run, then trotted back to Gisborne and finished at the top of Kaiti Hill.
Duathlons, multisport races, trail runs, ultrathons . . . Keith ticked off all sorts of superhuman challenges over his 73 years that had many shaking their heads in disbelief and awe.
But all of these. Every event he took part in. Every kilometre he clocked. Every finish line he crossed.
All paled in comparison with what Keith rated his greatest achievement of all . . . his service to the community, a contribution that could aptly be described by some as enduring and selfless, but to Keith was simply his duty.
“It's just what we do,” he said in a Gisborne Herald story after he was awarded a Queen's Service Medal for services to athletics in the 2013 New Year's Honours List.
Keith Clifford Scholes QSM — known as “KC” to some, “Fred” to a group of old uni mates and more latterly “Kaiwae” after discovering he was of Maori descent — crossed life's finish line on December 6 at his Fox Street home with his wife and “English rose” Margaret by his side.
He was the son of Athol and Edith Scholes and brother to Neil, Anne, Alan and Peter. The retired surveyor, Gisborne Athletics Club life member, Freemason Lodge Abercorn-Tuahine member, Mangapapa School, Ilminster Intermediate and Gisborne Boys' High old boy, and long-time accomplished brass band cornet player was farewelled in a service at Holy Trinity Church for which he left strict instructions . . . “be brief”.
Keith never did anything for the glory.
Success was about getting the job done — a fact underlined in his sporting life by the immense number of marathons (133) he chalked up and in his community life by the overwhelming number of people and organisations to benefit from his expertise and humble generosity.
Originally from Featherston (although born in Masterton), Keith came to Gisborne with his family when he was a toddler.
They lived in Ministry of Works sheds at the end of Fox Street before building a home — the same Fox Street property where Keith lived for much of his life.
The surrounding farmland and hills were their “forever playground” and where Keith's love of the outdoors blossomed.
Family and friends spoke warmly at his funeral service of their adventures.
Keith had no biological children but became a father and grandfather figure to those of his wife (they married in 1995), his brothers and sister, and close friends he made over the years.
Younger ones recalled the many activities he would line up for them and his wonderful garden — a passion arguably greater than his love of running.
Keith attended Victoria and Otago universities and graduated with a diploma in land surveying before taking up a career with Lands and Survey in Gisborne.
Surveyors are naturally sticklers for detail and accuracy and Keith was the ultimate example of this.
He extended his surveying into voluntary work far beyond the call of duty.
Myriad clubs and tracks up and down the Coast and a list as long as your arm of events up to international level benefited from his meticulous and detailed surveying expertise and work, including the Lake to Lighthouse race on which he spent hundreds of hours with no request for payment.
“I don't want money from the sport,” he told The Herald after receiving an Athletics New Zealand Long Service Award in 2008. “That's not the way we were brought up.”
The “brought up” was a tribute to his parents.
Older brother Neil, speaking at Keith's service, said it was through their parents that Keith inherited a number of his passions.
Keith regarded the QSM awarded to him in 2013 as a reward for service to the community, not his athletic prowess or contributions to athletics alone, his brother said.
“He also wanted it known that he regarded it as a collective honour and one to be shared with his parents in recognition of their contribution to the community.”
The service was presented jointly in English and Maori — a reflection of the Scholes family's Maori whakapapa which only came to light in recent years.
Through the maternal side of the family, it was revealed they were of Te Ati Awa o Te Waka-a-Maui descent.
Keith being Keith played a significant role in researching that connection, ultimately visiting his turangawaewae.
He and Margaret studied Maori through EIT Tairawhiti, achieving a Level 4 Certificate in Maori Studies in 2015.
Iwi bestowed the name Kaiwae on him — a reference to his heritage (Kaiwaeawae is the Maori name for Featherston), fleetness of foot and tenacity. Margaret became known as Makere.
The church — Holy Trinity then Nikora Tapu St Nicholas Anglican Church at Wainui Beach — was a constant in Keith's life.
Anglican Archbishop the Most Reverend Don Tamihere described Keith as loving, kind, compassionate, gentle, stubborn, and “black and white”.
He spoke of his “surveyor's logic . . . everything could be measured; everything could be known”.
“He was always very clear. He knew exactly who he was and what he wanted to do.”
Rev Tamihere marvelled at his immense knowledge of the Coast through his work.
“You could talk to him about any part of the Coast land and he could tell you not only what it looked like but what it felt like because Keith had been there.”
Faith for Keith was “a very practical thing”.
“Faith was something you did. It was not a belief in some strange being in the sky . . . faith was more about what you believed here in your heart and how that shaped the way you interacted with others.”
Rev Tamihere said Keith “fell in love” with learning the Maori language.
“He said to me ‘I've been challenged. People have asked me why am I learning this useless language, this stone age language? What good is it for me'?”
Rev Tamihere said when he explained it was part of “a family of languages” and its sentence structure was the same as Latin-based and Semetic languages, “Keith thought ‘goodness me, it opens you up to almost all of the world'.”
Calling him Kaiwae “was just brilliant”.
“Keith the runner; Keith the mover; Keith the man of action . . . he embodied it to the point where he asked me to stop calling him Keith.”
Rev Tamihere compared Keith's faith to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
“Keith understood his faith was not just aroha but manaakitanga (caring, nurturing) as well. He was the very emblem, the very symbol to us of what the parable of The Good Samaritan tried to teach us . . . that faith is not some ethereal, wishy-washy thing. Faith is action. Faith is deed. Faith is commitment.”
Keith met Margaret (then Hemmington) through Gisborne Marathon Clinic and they married in 1995.
“He showed me how to run,” she said. “He did that for a lot of people.”
He clearly knew his stuff. Margaret completed her first marathon at the age of 40 in a time of 4 hours 44 minutes. Ten years later she did it in 3hrs 30min.
Keith entered the two of them in the 2023 Rotorua Marathon. She intends to fulfil that commitment — her 25th Rotorua marathon — with son John alongside her in his first marathon.
Margaret stressed that Keith was adamant he did not want people to remember him “as just a runner”.
All of the events he competed in over the decades were “for fun”.
His greatest satisfaction and sense of achievement came from helping others and it did not matter what that comprised — whether it was doing other people's lawns, picking up litter along the street, playing the cornet at church, in brass bands or at an Anzac Day service, helping other runners achieve their goals, raising money for various organisations, getting out his famous “wheel” to measure out a track.
And whatever he did, Margaret said, he was always well-prepared.
In an endorsement letter supporting his QSM nomination, a fellow parishioner summed up Keith's life in a succinct way he appreciated.
“All that he does is done from love; for the church, for music and for other human beings — no other reward for him save that of knowing he is using a God-given talent in the service of humanity.”