Hannah Minnell Wairarapa College student Hannah Minnell said she felt honoured to be able to explain what Anzac Day meant to her in a speech to Masterton's Anzac Day service today.
This is the first year a student has been the official guest speaker, although the school has been involvedin the service for the past few years.
Head of history Helen Sproat said her classes had been studying WWI, with each student focusing on a local soldier. She said at the service the students usually read out a list of the names of the soldiers they had researched.
Hannah, 17, is the school's top history student this year and was chosen to represent them by giving the Anzac Day speech.
She studied WWI soldier Lieutenant Frederick Roy Messenger, and spoke about him and her own grandfather, World War II bomber pilot, Eric Jones.
"While one of Eric's brothers was killed in the Battle of Crete, we were one of the lucky families. Many were not," she said. "For this I am eternally grateful as I was able to grow up and get to know this wonderful man. Many thousands of families were not as fortunate as mine in this sense."
Hannah also spoke about what Anzac Day meant to her as a young person.
"There has been a consistently increasing crowd at Anzac Day services, and a particularly large presence of young people. From babies in their mother's arms to teenagers and young adults such as myself," she said. "This increasing number of young people attending Anzac Day services is testimony to the sense of history and national pride that New Zealanders feel for Anzac Day and all that it means to be a Kiwi."
Ms Sproat said she organised the school's involvement to help students become more involved.
She said the research the students completed tracked back to the Wairarapa Archive. "I wanted the kids to get some hands-on experience. It's making some good, strong links between the community and the school."
Masterton Returned Services Association is 100 per cent behind the initiative.
President Bob Hill said they wanted a young person to speak at the ceremony as Anzac Day is "not just about us older people".
He said it was nice to have a younger person's perspective at the ceremony.
Mr Hill said Hannah's speech was inspiring, and it would definitely not be the last time that a young person spoke at the ceremony.
