Gone, but service not forgotten: Tori White

Bob White was a winger for the Maori All Blacks when his wife Mae - a Wynyard from Motatau and first cousin to Sir James Henare - gave birth to their son Torium in 1937.
The boy didn't follow in his father's bootsteps on the playing field, but in their home town of Hukerenui Tori White was also a rugby giant. His Herculean feats in almost single-handedly running the Mid Northern Rugby Football Club from the 1970s until his death from cancer last month equalled his dad's playing achievements.
Some Hukerenui people might even say the son surpassed the father. But not Tori. A quiet and unassuming man, he never sought the limelight and was always eager to applaud others.
He would no doubt have been shy and self-effacing at the presentation of Whangarei District Council Civic Honours last night, when his wife Lynette accepted his posthumous award for tireless dedication to the Mid Northern club and Hukerenui community.
Tori met Lynette Shepherd when they were both juniors at the former Hukerenui District High School where, as she was four years years younger, she remembers him mainly as "king" of the marbles players. They got to know each other when she later taught at the school, marrying in 1962 around the same time the Hukerenui and Towai-Maromaku clubs merged to form the Mid Northern club, for which Tori played on the wing, outside future All Blacks Ken and Sid Going.
Tori and Lynette farmed his family land and had two children, daughter Julie-Ann and son Preston (Butch). Wife and kids shared his duties in his long service as Mid Northern rugby club captain, manager and bar manager. His family worked alongside him when he washed football jerseys, peeled potatoes for after-match meals and wrapped prizes for club raffles.
Tori launched children's athletics, cricket and tennis clubs at Hukerenui, organised most of the rugby club's junior teams, and prizegivings for JMB rugby, hockey and netball teams.
He marked the rugby fields each year and hired out the footy club to local groups. His family used to wonder why he went to night football practice long after his playing days ended, but he had to open the clubrooms, turn on the outside lights and make sure there would be hot water for the boys' showers when they came off the field.
Tori also got behind community events and supported the Hukerenui school. He once raised funds to send a young local man with leukaemia to the United States and buy him a car.
Tori spent hundreds of hours helping others, never expecting thanks. He died soon after he and Lynette stopped milking their cows and were looking forward to retirement and spending more time with their four grandchildren.
Lynette said: "He was a very gutsy person with great determination and he had a very gentle heart."
Evidence of his popularity was the 2000-strong crowd at his funeral before he was buried at Kauri cemetery beside Preston, who died in a farm accident three years ago.