"We've all been inspired by the Speight's billboards, but I'm afraid the reality is very different for the majority of leisure horse riders on the Taieri," Dunedin Riding Centre owner Victoria Watt says.
Talk about Winston Peters and Owen Glenn got sidelined yesterday while Prime Minister Helen Clark squarely focused her attention on Otago's elite secondary school pupils at the 2008 Otago Daily Times Class Act awards.
A horse was spooked by a passing truck on Saddle Hill during the weekend and had to be euthanased due to its injuries.
Logan Park High School pupils have proved you do not need brawn to win the national final of a football tournament - you just need brains.
"One good thing about my past - it's given me a lot of material for my writing."
A projected decline in Otago school rolls is one of the issues which has prompted Dunedin's secondary schools to form New Zealand's first urban videoconferencing teaching network.
"We lie in bed at night listening to souped-up cars racing by. We lie there waiting for the big bang."
Swapping the cosy confines of the cafe culture in central Paris for the Orokonui Ecosanctuary was a daunting experience for French engineering student Loan Venkatapen.
Staff at Jonathans Camera and Video are keeping their jobs after a national chain of photography stores bought the business from the liquidators.
Eight weeks ago, Tavita Nielsen-Mamea weighed 97.3kg and his body was 46% fat.
At 35, Dan Reddiex is the youngest secondary school principal in Dunedin, but don't be fooled by his youth.
"Hearing loss is like a car with worn brakes. You only notice it when you climb into someone else's car and their brakes work better."
Hearing loss has become a "silent epidemic". The number of New Zealanders making ACC claims for industrial deafness has increased 658% in the past decade.
A group of Logan Park High School Services Academy pupils was turning blue in the face in their bid to raise awareness of prostate cancer in the Octagon yesterday.
Staff at the Kura Kaupapa Maori O Otepoti in Sunnyvale are reassuring the community they have an excellent Maori education facility and are taking action to address the issues raised by a recent Education Review Office report.
The Secretary for Education has again intervened at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Otepoti, in Sunnyvale, following another damning report from the Education Review Office (ERO).
A coal-mining company group has vehemently opposed the Department of Conservation's proposal to create a multimillion-dollar conservation park in the St Bathans, Hawkdun, Ida, Ewe and St Marys Ranges.
A 23.3% increase in the number of foreign fee-paying (FFP) pupils at Otago secondary schools during the past year is taking some financial pressure off school budgets.
Community Trust of Otago chairman Bill Thomson was visibly annoyed at being bombarded with questions from opponents of the Awatea St Stadium during the trust's annual public meeting last night.
The success continues for one of Dunedin's newest scenic sites.
