Class Act ten years on: Waitaki Boys' High School

Where are they now?

2011: Australian-born Will Steenholdt was a sergeant in the New Zealand Air Training Corps and learning to fly a Cessna. He had also taken lead roles in many of the school’s productions and taken up the bagpipes. He hoped to train as a pilot in the Royal Australian Air
Force.
2021: Not getting into the air force because of teenage eczema delayed Steenholdt’s flying goals but not being bound to a 10-year job opened up other opportunities. He graduated with a politics, philosophy, and economics degree and is a second lieutenant in the
Royal New Zealand Engineers, based in Christchurch. Now he is not moving around so much, he also plans to join a pipe band and gain his gliding licence.

 

2011: Douglas Wood was head boy and the school’s top scholar. He captained the 1st XI football team and had passed grade 8 New Zealand Speech Board examinations. He planned to study engineering or medicine.
2021: Wood moved to Wellington six years ago to complete his medical training and is a registrar working in cardiothoracic surgery at Wellington Regional Hospital. He continues to play football, in a 4th division Sunday League and the ‘‘aptly named’’ Salmon FC
side: ‘‘We’re a fairly social outfit rather than a championship side,’’ he says, ‘‘but as the motto goes, ‘Salmon swim upstream’.”