Star of the show at Tahakopa School’s 125th anniversary was the old school dental hut — better known to former pupils as the "murder room".
Among the 70 attending the reunion in the remote Catlins hamlet was someone who remembered the hut less fondly than most, despite it being used rather more innocuously to display old school photos yesterday.
Eleanor Sinclair, still a resident of Tahakopa, said she had been seeking her face in the 1959 class photo, to no avail.
"Then it came back to me," she said.
"We had the dental nurse in the morning, and I must have been so cross after she’d buzzed my teeth that I hopped out of the chair and kicked her in the shins.
"Well I got sent home of course, but there were school photos that afternoon. My mother tried to get me to return for the photos, but I wasn’t going back for anything, in case I ended up back in the dentist’s chair."
Like the others attending, Mrs Sinclair said otherwise her memories of attending the small rural school were happy ones.
"It’s like any school, you can’t wait to get away when you’re younger but, when you look back, you realise what lovely times they were."
Principal Cherie Zoutenbier-Bisset said the school continued to provide a warm and nurturing rural education for its pupils to this day, despite concerns about a shrinking roll of just four this past year.
"Former pupils speak of Tahakopa instilling good, old-fashioned values of community and respect, and that holds true today."
She said recent media coverage of the school’s plight as it approached its anniversary had helped spread the word.
"Let’s just say there are hopeful signs of interest from four or five potential new students next year. The ministry and community continue to be supportive of our drive to remain open, so we’re certainly not going anywhere until the picture becomes clearer."
During her opening anniversary speech, Mrs Zoutenbier-Bisset said she recalled her own introduction to the school following her appointment as principal.
"I was shown the wooden front step into the building, with a well-worn groove from all the many children who have crossed the threshold over the decades.
"We plan to continue wearing it down for many years to come."
