Five Northlanders earn spot on New Year's Honours list

Five Northlanders are rewarded for their work in the community with recognition in the New Year's Honours announced today.
Four receive Queen's Service Medals (QSM) and the fifth becomes a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM).
Pona and Lizzie Matenga met at a poker game at the Maungaturoto Hotel in 1944 - they were playing for cigarettes.
Pona, a shearer, and his workmates would go to the hotel - where Lizzie worked - to play poker after work.
World War Two was on - tobacco supplies had been rationed and cigarettes were a valuable commodity.
The two hit it off and in 1946, along with four other couples, they were married at Otamatea Marae. Pona was 19 and his young bride just 17.
"I ended up winning cigarettes and a wife," Mr Matenga said.
There was another reward for the couple today - a Queen's Service Medal (QSM) for public service.
From their marriage, the couple built a solid partnership, raising 13 children.
Then, in later years, they have provided cultural advice to various organisations including the Northland Health, the New Zealand Police and the Department of Conservation.
The Matengas were flattered and modest about their achievements. "There's an old Maori saying - `a kumara doesn't talk about how sweet it is'," Mr Matenga said.
They maintain none of their accomplishments would have been possible without the support of family and friends. "It's an honour but we're only a small part of that honour," he said.
The couple have 53 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren.
Kaitaia kaumatua Oswald John Perry was also flattered when first told he had been appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in the New Year's Honours List.
But Mr Perry, or Ossie to everybody that knows him, accepted the honour - given for his services to the community - on behalf of all the people he worked with and for during his life.
"I believe that these sorts of things, if they help the people you work with and for, are good. It's not just for me though, but for all those people I work with and on behalf of," he said.
Mr Perry, a respected kaumatua of Te Rarawa, started his working life in the New Zealand Army and served as a sergeant major in Malaysia between 1959 and 1961.
He worked for the former Department of Social Welfare between 1978 and 1991, first as a social worker in central Auckland, then taking charge of operations in the south Auckland region.
Since his retirement, he has set up social services within Te Runanga o Te Rarawa, attended court as a kaumatua, assisted police and probation services and acted as a counsellor and adviser within his whanau.
Bethea Eve Frost, of Leigh, 21km north-east of Warkworth, learnt some valuable life lessons in the Girl Guides organisation as a young girl - things she wanted to pass on.
Mrs Frost, from Leigh, received the Queen's Service Medal (QSM) in the New Year's Honours for community service, which includes almost 50 years voluntary work with the Girl Guides and Rangers as a leader and co-ordinator.
"It is very nice to be recognised for the service you have given over the years.
"I felt very honoured to have received it and will accept it with humility," Mrs Frost said.
The love affair with the guides began when Mrs Frost was an eight-year-old in Wanganui. "We had leaders that taught us values, something which I have been sticking to all of my life," she said.
Keeping a secret was one of those values, one Mrs Frost has honoured by not telling anyone - apart from her husband Richard - that she was to receive the medal.
She has also been actively involved in the local bowling club and researched and wrote a book for the Leigh School centenary.