Duxes
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1990’s School Dux
Luke Merriman, Dux 1990
General excellence each year (including six subjects in the 5th form) is a credit to anyone but then we find that Luke has won five subject prizes over the last two years the prestigious Bremner Scholarship for academic excellence in the 6th form was also won last year. As well as his class work, there is the odd credit pass in the Australian Mathematics Competition, first placing in speech competitions and so on.
Obviously Luke has worked hard and very steadily to achieve this fine record, but motivation and desire to succeed have been equally important. Luke hasn’t just spent all his time in the classroom either but has played soccer and badminton for the school and is in fact a member of the Two Under Club after scoring a hole in one at the local golf course by local I mean Lawrence. Living in Lawrence and Dunedin has created some problems in terms of playing sport and study because ol the time factor involved in all the travelling.
You can set your watch by Luke — 6:30pm up to his room — 9.3Opm back down, having done his school work. Luke isn’t actually sure of where he will end up but hc will start on a general science degree and perhaps move into medicine.
We wish Luke all the best for Bursary and Scholarship and for his studies at university.
At Kings Aidan was awarded a ‘School Blue’ for scholastic competitions. This was an honour that this quiet mannered, modest student so richly deserved.
In 1991 after placing first in every subject he took in form seven, he was given the highest academic award the school can offer — that of Dux. Aidan was also a School Prefect.
Aidan involved himself in all aspects of school life, playing soccer tennis and golf, and being a member of our orienteering team, which won the Dunedin schools championship: he took part in the School musical and was involved in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme.
Aidan’s undergraduate studies (BSc(Hons) in Mathematics, and MSc in Physics) were carried out at the University of Otago.
He completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Physics at the University of Sussex. This led to the making of the first Bose-Einstein condensates in the UK in 1998. The first Scottish Bose-Einstein condensates were made in his lab in 2003, and the same experiment was extended to create one of the world’s first magnetic storage rings for Bose-Einstein condensates, and high-contrast matter-wave interference.
Aiden works at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He works in various areas of atomic physics including ultracold atomic systems, special states of matter in these systems (Bose-Einstein condensates) and four-wave mixing in atomic vapours.
Other School Successes:
Aidan, won first place in the 1991 universities bursaries/entrance exams —— chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics with calculus and mathematics with statistics.
He gained the top mark in the country for physics in the private scholarship examinations run by the New Zealand Education and Scholarship Trust.
Other achievements were:
He was reserve for the New Zealand International Mathematics Olympiad team. He was rated seventh in the country.
Second equal out of over 1000 entrants in New Zealand in the National Bank Senior Science Competition.
Selected for the Fletcher Challenge Science Summer School (120 students were selected).
Highly Commended in the 1991 N.Z. Science Summer School Essay Competition
Prize winner in the Westpac Mathematics Competition
His Excellency Mr Anthony Simpson has been serving as New Zealand’s Ambassador to the Italian Republic since May 2019. He is also serving as non-resident Ambassador to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, San Marino, and Serbia, and as Permanent Representative to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
A career diplomat, Ambassador Anthony has previously has completed missions in Tokyo and New York, and has undertaken a range of roles in the areas of trade and economic policy, international security, regional integration, and multilateral diplomacy.
In his final year at school Anthony was a School Prefect, School Dux, winner of the English, history, classical studies and art history prizes, the school representative in the mini–United Nations Assembly, the school council secretary and a member of the workday committee, the formal committee, and the common room committee. He was interested in sport playing rugby, tennis and basketball.
He was the leading speaker in the school debating team, a peer tutor and a teacher’s assistant. In the previous year he won the coveted Bremner Scholarship for Academic Excellence as well as special prizes for English, history and classical studies.
In his second year at Kings, he had the lead role as Oliver in the school’s production of Oliver. In 1992 he really came of age taking the leading part of the Modern Major General in the Queen’s High School production of the Pirates of Penzance. He was awarded a School Blue for Drama.
On leaving King’s Anthony spent from 1993 to 1998 studying at University of Otago. He graduated in 1999 with a Batchelor of Arts with Double Honours Degrees in English and Political Studies. He continued his study from 2008 to 2009 when he completed an Executive Masters of Public Administration with ANZ School of Government at Victoria University
He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2000 and has remained there since then in a variety of roles. His first year, 2000, he was Policy Officer in United Nations and Commonwealth Division. Then from 2002 to 2006 he was Second Secretary (Trade) at NZ Embassy in Tokyo (including two years Japanese language training). The next three years were spent as Senior Policy Officer, Economic Division, covering APEC issues. This was followed in 2009 when he became First Secretary, NZ Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. A particular focus here was on NZ’s campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council. At the end of this time in 2015 he spent a year leading the New Zealand’s capital-based policy coordination team during its term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, and served as Deputy Director for European Affairs in New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He then spent a further two years the Political Coordinator for New Zealand’s membership of the UN Security Council (based in Wellington)
From 2019 to the present he has been the New Zealand Ambassador in Rome.
Cameron Wilkie
Cameron Wilkie is Dux for 1993 – School Magazine
Since arriving at King’s part way through the fifth form Cameron has kept himself very busy both inside and outside of the classroom. Cameron’s academic excellence has never been in question. He has received General Excellence awards each year in all his subjects. This effort combined with a whole host of Distinctions, Top 100’s, credits, merits, first places etc. in the external tests that are available to schools such as the Australian Mathematics Competition and the BNZ Senior Science Competition.
To top all this off — this year he has been awarded Dux of the School 1993.
Obviously Cameron is very quick to grasp basic principles and concepts, but there’s more to it than that, I’m talking about chemistry in particular. I feel that Cameron is able to imagine himself as the particle’ or to picture himself in the solution, and in this way he has a fine ‘feel’ for what’s actually happening during the reaction. Much as we talk about a natural sportsman having an intuitive feel for the game I feel that Cameron has this ability in his work.
How does Cameron let off a little steam? Try debating, chess, ice hockey, theatresports. Completely different disciplines which enable him to relax. But he does well at these als& Cameron has achieved blues in drama for the last two years and has represented Otago in ice hockey and theatresports.
Cameron has a confidence about him and yet he is still able to relate to his fellow students well as his efforts as a peer tutor demonstrate. This confidence is what enables him to be a presenter on stage at the Dunedin Town Hall at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Choral Festival.
All in all, a fine recipient of the Dux award — maintaining the very high standard set over the years. I, on behalf of the staff and boys, congratulate Cameron and wish him all the best for the future and whatever it holds for him
| 1994: Craig Thomas Miskell (Attended King’s High School from 1990 to 1994)
Craig Miskell shows off his High Distinction Science Certificate from the Australian School Science Competition. General Excellence awards — special prizes — even a first equal in New Zealand in a science at competition — all add up to a very capable young man who is working hard to achieve his tremendous potential. We don’t all do that — Craig does! |
| 1995:
Brown, Michael Michael has completed a very successful al academic year. 1995 has been a in continuation of the success Michael ol achieved in 1994 when he won the top nd academic award for Sixth Formers. |
| 1996 Grant Cameron Dick |
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| The King’s 1996 Dux, Associate Professor Grant Dick is Head of the Department of Information Science at the University of Otago. He has a background in Information Systems development and a PhD in evolutionary computation
His PhD thesis was in a field known as evolutionary computation, developing software that mimics natural selection in order to find multiple solutions to complex problems. It is an idea with applications for finance, engineering, medicine and a broad range of other fields in which complicated decisions play a major role. Examples of Grant’s work have appeared in internationally-respected journals. Grant’s overall research goal is to discover intelligent methods to solve difficult real-world problems. Broadly speaking, he is interested in computational intelligence methods and their application to scheduling, optimisation, data mining and multi-objective problem solving. There are many ways to solve a complex mathematical problem. You can do it the old-fashioned way, using pen and paper. Better still, you can program a computer to solve the problem for you. Or even better still, as Grant has discovered, you can program a computer to program itself to solve the problem for you. Grant is the recipient of a University of Otago teaching award. As well as being the King’s Dux, Grant, in his five years at King’s, collected numerous academic awards including Certificate of Credit – Australian Mathematics Competition 1995; Certificate of Distinction -Australian Science Competition 1995; Certificate of Commendation – Analytical Chemistry Competition 1996; Certificate of Merit – Chemistry 13 Examination 1995 and 1996. During this time, he also gained Honourable Mention in the third form, General Excellence in Forms 4, 5 and 6, Form 5 Science Prize, Form 6 Chemistry and Computing Prizes and the prestigious Bremner Trophy for top student in Form 6. |
1997:
Ming Lee
The 1997 Dux of King’s High School is Ming Lee. He arrived in New Zealand from Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, only in January. He had already achieved the highest pass possible in his 0 Level examinations, making him one of the top students in Malaysia last year. The determination to join his sister studying medicine at a New Zealand university saw him come to King’s. Ming is without doubt one of the finest students I have taught in all my teaching career. He has worked diligently all year and possesses acute perception and great intellectual prowess. Ming gained first place in all six of his subjects: English, biology Chemistry, Physics, Calculus and Statistics. English is actually Ming Lee’s third language.
Ming’s interests include reading science fiction and playing badminton. He did not hesitate to help classmates in difficulty and stimulate his teachers with the odd curly’ question. Often though he ended up the subject of laughter, due to his immense powers of concentration (he wasn’t aware of what was going on around him!). Ming took it all in good spirit and looks to be a certain candidate to make the 387 benchmark to win an interview for Auckland University’ Medical School. We wish him luck.
1998:
Melville, David
David’s list of achievements while he has been at King’s would take too much space to compile so only the highlights of his career will be mentioned.
Apart from being an inspired academic, David has been a prefect,
a tutor for Tranzrail, an announcer with the Young Enterprise
100.2 King’s FM, played cricket, basketball, tennis and he was a member of the social committee.
David’s academic achievements are extensive. Every year since the third form David has been awarded General Excellence awards in all subjects. In the 5th Form the Mathematics and Graphics prizes were won. In the 6th Form he obtained the Mathematics, Chemistry and Graphics special prizes and the Bremner prize for Scholarship. In the Australian Chemistry competition he has scored in the top 1% in the country , earning a High Distinction, for the last two years, and in the Australian Mathematics and Science Competitions he has earned Distinctions. David has been awarded a Blue for Scholastic Achievement in 1997 and 1998.
David has followed these successes with General Excellences in Mathematics with Statistics, Mathematics with Calculus, Chemistry, Physics and Graphics this year and has been awarded Dux of King’s High School for 1998.
David intends to study Physics or Engineering next year at university
1999:
Greene, Craig
Each year at school Craig has gained academic distinction awards of the highest level. General Excellence for the last 4 years as well as special prizes in Workshop Technology Chemistry and Graphics show that he is a capable and focused young man. This year Craig receives Excellence Awards in six subjects, the Special Prize for Chemistry the Special Prize for Mathematics and the Special Prize for Physics.
Soccer and social cricket is Craig’s main out of class interests and he was a house prefect and a member of the successful Stage Challenge team.
Next year Craig hopes to study Engineering at Otago University with the ultimate aim of being an Electronics Engineer for a motorsport team.
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