Henare Te Ua

Henare Te Ua was born in Rotorua in 1933 of Ngati Porou descent. His father Whiu Te Purei fought with the 28th Maori Battalion in World War 2 and was killed at Cassino.

His mother Hinehou Ngata passed away from tuberculosis in 1938. Henare was adopted by his mother's eldest sister Rina and her husband Hetekia Te Kani-a-Takirau Kerekere Tuhoe te Ua. He was raised in Gisborne and educated at Gisborne High School before spending a year at Nelson College in 1951.

In 1965 Henare became a radio announcer at Radio Northland. Based in Whangarei he travelled throughout the region reporting on local news and events. He then moved to Radio Geyserland in Rotorua as an announcer in charge in 1976 and then to Te Reo o Aotearoa as assistant programme director 3 years later. There he became involved with Radio New Zealand's Maori programme archive which later merged with the general programme archive to become Sound Archives Nga Taonga Korero.

In 1987 Henare produced the songs "E Pa To Hau" and "Parihaka Te Whiti Tohu Tawhiao" on the Patea Maori Club's "Poi E". Between 1995 and 2003 he presented the Maori magazine programme "Whenua" on National Radio.

In the 1992 New Year's Honours Henare was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for public services. He was recognised for his outstanding contribution to radio at the 1998 New Zealand Radio Awards and was a recipient of the Sir Kingi Ihaka Award at the 2002 Te Waka Toi Awards by Creative New Zealand. He passed away on 2 May 2007 aged 74.

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Comments

local alien said…
Thanks for telling us about him. An interesting life

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