You may be aware that Cheryll Sotheran was named New Zealander of the Year by North & South magazine in their January edition, which hit the news-stands this week.
Cheryll is only the third person to have been honoured in this way. The previous two winners were Hon Doug Graham, Minister of Treaty Negotiations and West Auckland Māori leader John Tamihere. This year's runner up was writer Alan Duff.
When receiving the award, Cheryll made it very clear that she saw it as an acknowledgement of everyone at Te Papa who, collectively, has made this one of the greatest museums in the world.
North & South feature writer Nicola Legate wrote of Te Papa: 'New Zealand is all around you here.... This is 100 per cent, unadulterated Aotearoa. Our stuff, in our place. It is, for better or for worse, the material evidence of what we together have achieved here. It is almost a relief to be able to remember it, soak it up, indulge in it.'
Editor Robyn Langwell wrote of Cheryll: 'Finally, it became clear that in 1998 there was one person who above all else had shown us what it truly means to be New Zealanders. She has steered with unswerving vision and determination our most ambitious cultural project of the century. She has held up a mirror to our lives and overseen the establishment of a museum that by world standards is bold, vigorous, audacious, and, above all else, successful.... Take a bow Cheryll Sotheran... North & South New Zealander of the Year.'