Cliff Jones was not famous. Or powerful. He was a police constable in a medium-sized North Island town, a father of four and a man of the great outdoors.
He might seem an unlikely choice as the Herald's New Zealander of the Year for 2002. Until his story is told. For in one moving demonstration of the human spirit, Cliff Jones came to public awareness and seemed to make tangible some of the intangible values this country holds dear.
In October 2002 he was the policeman who travelled half the North Island alone through a winter night to help in a desperate search for a 2-year-old French girl missing in freezing conditions near a river beneath the Chateau Tongariro. And, it was Mr Jones who found her, at first thinking her dead then being stunned when she woke to ask for her "maman".
He didn't do it alone. And he definitely did not seek individual acclaim for what was always a team effort. But as the Turangi-based search and rescue co-ordinator for the central plateau, he organised and led many missions in 2002 and in the previous decade in which dire prospects were conquered by professionals and volunteers who refused to let hope die.
The rescue of the little French girl and the choice of Mr Jones as New Zealander of the Year are testament to the generosity of spirit found in all of those who give up their time, comfort and safety to come to the aid of others.
