Mihi School 70th anniversary reunion celebrates rural community

David Leslie (left), Lesley Handcock and Stephen Neville were among the pupils there on Mihi School’s first day in 1956. Photo / Annabel Reid

Mihi School principal Jenna Foley has taught in rural Bay of Plenty and South Auckland city schools.

“Country kids are so much cooler than city kids,” she says.

In the city, she found “no sense of community” and “no history”.

In Reporoa, she had “never known kids that are so grateful for everything”.

As three foundation pupils sat in the school’s staffroom last Thursday, they explained how Mihi School was the centre of the community and one with great history.

Before the internet or easy travel, it was where people gathered, socialised and stayed connected.

The trio said families were “all the same”, bonded by having “nothing” but never feeling “deprived”.

This weekend, more than 230 former students, staff and families return to reconnect and celebrate 70 years since the school opened.

Founding students’ memories

Lesley Handcock, David Leslie and Stephen Neville were among 69 children who arrived at a Reporoa paddock with just two classrooms in 1956.

The post-World War II “baby boom” drove a “huge explosion of population” in the area, creating demand for another school as the three existing ones were “bursting at the seams”.

Mihi School was “at capacity before it even got going”, Leslie said.

A third and fourth classroom were quickly added, and the library was later converted into a fifth to ease overcrowding.

Students were taught English, Maths, Nature Studies, Social Studies, Art and Physical Education.

Their rugby jerseys were hessian sacks dyed “Mihi red”.

Music came through radio broadcasts played over speakers in the hall. Before that, students went to the principal’s house to listen.

They wrote with fountain pens, where if someone bumped a desk, “ink went everywhere”.

Students cleaned the classrooms themselves to help save money.

“It was the only socialising we had,” Leslie said - unless you could get through on the party line shared by nine families.

Local parents built many of the school’s facilities, including the swimming pool and concrete tennis and basketball courts.

One teacher, a carpenter in a “former life”, oversaw the pool construction.

“He’d shoot out there from class and tell them what they had to do,” Leslie said.

Neville’s father built the hall between milking cows.

In June 1999, a fire caused by an electrical fault destroyed four classrooms.

It started early in the morning before students arrived. The library and administration block were badly smoke-damaged and most of their contents were lost although some school records were recovered.

Students stayed home for the final two days of term as the community moved quickly to salvage what it could.

With support from the Ministry of Education, prefabricated classrooms, rows of portaloos and plans for replacement buildings were in place within a fortnight.

It was the middle of winter and conditions were difficult. But staff and students carried on - they were used to it.

Neville recalled one snow day where they rolled a snowball so large half a dozen students struggled to push it.

Handcock said at times it was “spectacular”, with frost covering trees from top to bottom and ice thick enough to stand on in troughs.

David Leslie (left), Jenna Foley, Lesley Handcock, Stephen Neville and Carissa Wills at Mihi School ahead of its 70th reunion. Photo / Annabel Reid

Neville’s daughter and former pupil, Carissa Wills, chaired the committee organising the reunion.

Wills said the same strong sense of community remains today — something she has experienced herself and now sees through her three children at the school.

“It’s the parents, the teachers and the principal who keep things going,” she said.

People without a direct connection still show up to help.

That’s what made it stand out and why “everyone’s got a special place in their hearts for Mihi School”, Wills said.

Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.