Emeritus Professor Ron G. Crocombe [1]
Sunday, June 21, 2009 - 18:30. Updated on Sunday, April 20, 2014 - 17:35.
Editor
Many of your readers will, I know, share the sorrow and regret at the news of the passing of Emeritus Professor Ronald Gordon Crocombe on Friday, 19 June 2009 in Auckland en-route to Rarotonga from Nuku'alofa.
As a student and protege of Ron (as he always insisted on being called), I remember him distinctly for his modeling his life on the quotation:
"If there is any kindness that I can do, let me do it now as I may not pass this way again."
Undoubtedly, he will be remembered by his work of distinction and lifetime services dedicated to re-uniting the people of our rich and diverse oceanic region.
He will be remembered most of all by the thousands of people whose lives he touched through his teaching and writing on the Pacific and through the person he was.
Our condolences to Marjie and the family and to all the people across the globe, including ourselves, whose lives will be the poorer for Papa Ron's passing.
The late H. E. Maude's words of an old Maori tangi for a departed paramount chief comes to mind:
"The horn of the crescent moon has broken off;
The sheltering Totara of the Great-forest-of-Tane has fallen;
The lofty mountain has been leveled to the ground."
(Journal of Pacific History, 1973)
Morgan and Eileen Tuimaleali'ifano and family