For good, or bad, these "newsmakers" were the people making headlines in 2023.
Two-thousand-and-eighteen feels like a lifetime ago.
No-one had uttered the words Covid-19, Bill English was the leader of the National Party and the All Blacks were reigning Rugby World Cup champions.
It was also the year the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark Trust submitted its first application to the New Zealand commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).
After numerous delays due to withdrawing their application and resending it in 2019, as well as the pandemic, they welcomed two Unesco Global Geoparks assessors to the Waitaki in July last year.
The decision to grant Unesco status was announced two months later and it was made official in May of this year.
Waitaki became home to the first global geopark in New Zealand and one of only 20 in the southern hemisphere.
This was a momentous occasion for the district and one that took years of hard work.
It could not have happened without the efforts of geopark manager Lisa Heinz.
She began as the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark co-ordinator in 2019 and was then made manager in 2021.
Originally from Nierswalde, Germany, Ms Heinz first came to New Zealand as part of an exchange at the University of Otago in 2016.
She returned to do her master’s degree in 2018 and moved to Oamaru a year later.
Obtaining Unesco designation required more than just having the physical geological sites.
It needed an organisation to run the geopark and to value the sites as well as their rich history while educating the public about them and safeguarding them for the future.
This is where Ms Heinz shone.
In her four years, she has helped grow the geopark with a number of projects and initiatives including holding the first-ever Waitaki Geopark Festival last month.
While Ms Heinz recently announced her resignation from the role, as she and her partner were moving to Wellington, her impact on the district will not soon be forgotten.
— Nic Duff
