Margaret Mahy was a New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. Many of her story plots have strong supernatural elements but her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. She wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories. At her death she was one of thirty writers to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her "lasting contribution to children's literature".
The Canterbury Rams are a New Zealand basketball team based in Christchurch. The Rams compete in the National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home games at Cowles Stadium. For sponsorship reasons, they are known as The Wheeler Motor Canterbury Rams.
The Halberg Awards are a set of awards, given annually since 1949, recognising New Zealand's top sporting achievements. They are named for New Zealand former middle-distance runner and Olympic gold medalist Sir Murray Halberg. The initial award was handed out in 1949, and continued until 1960 under the auspices of the NZ Sportsman magazine. Since 1963, the awards have been organised by the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation, and the number of award categories has grown to eight.
Donna Wilkins is a New Zealand representative in netball and basketball. She married Southland farmer Mike Wilkins on 17 March 2007. Wilkins returned to the Southern Steel for the 2012 season, after a short stint with the Canterbury Tactix in 2011.
Paratene McLeod is a New Zealand basketball player.
Martin van Beynen is a New Zealand writer, print journalist, and former columnist for The Press in Christchurch.
James Douglas Patersonborn in Christchurch, New Zealand) is a former rugby union player with dual United States and New Zealand citizenship. Paterson played Super Rugby for the Highlanders between 2010 and 2011. Paterson played for the United States at the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Nathan Phillip Cohen is a New Zealand rower. He is a two-time world champion, and won a gold medal in the Olympics. In 2006, rowing a single scull, he won a gold medal at the World University Games. In doing so, he became the first New Zealander to win a gold medal at the World University Games in any sport. Cohen and his rowing partner, Joseph Sullivan, won back-to-back gold medals in the men's double sculls at both the 2010 and 2011 World Rowing Championships. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, he and his partner won the gold medal in the men's double sculls, after breaking the Olympic best time in the heats. In 2013, Cohen was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to rowing.
Sam Johnson is a prominent social entrepreneur from Christchurch, New Zealand. Johnson is known as the founder of the Student Volunteer Army which mobilised 11,000 students to assist the cleanup following the Christchurch earthquakes and has continued as a nationwide volunteering movement
Kevin Lavelle Braswell is an American professional basketball coach and former player. He played college basketball for Georgetown University before playing professionally in Europe and New Zealand. He currently serves as assistant coach of the Akita Northern Happinets in the Japanese B.League.
Marcel Xavier Jones is an American-New Zealand professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the Oregon State Beavers between 2004 and 2008 before embarking on a professional career that spanned across the globe, from Europe and the Middle East, to his adoptive home of New Zealand. Since 2009, Jones has had consistent yearly stints in the New Zealand NBL, largely due to gaining New Zealand citizenship in 2012. He has also played consistently in the Persian Gulf region since 2017.
The Ngaio Marsh Awards, popularly called the Ngaios, are literary awards presented annually in New Zealand to recognise excellence in crime fiction, mystery, and thriller writing. The Awards were established by journalist and legal editor Craig Sisterson in 2010, and are named after Dame Ngaio Marsh, one of the four Queens of Crime of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. The Award is presented at the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival in Christchurch, the hometown of Dame Ngaio.
Marques Reid Whippy is a Fijian former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for Brigham Young University in Hawaii before playing professionally in Spain, Australia, Chile and New Zealand. He has been a regular member of the Fijian national team.
Samuel Timmins is a New Zealand professional basketball player for the Otago Nuggets of the New Zealand National Basketball League (NZNBL). He is also contracted with the Sydney Kings of the Australian National Basketball League (NBL). He played college basketball for the Washington Huskies. In 2022, he helped the Nuggets win the championship.
McKenzie Zachary Moore is an American professional basketball player who last played for the TNT Tropang Giga of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). Moore earned a name for himself in New Zealand between 2015 and 2017. With the Canterbury Rams in 2016, he helped the team win the minor premiership while earning NBL MVP honors. Moore has also played in Belgium, Greece, Russia, Turkey, Poland and Israel.
The 2016 NBL season was the 35th season of the National Basketball League. The league's team total dropped to an all-time low for the 2016 season, with the departure of the Manawatu Jets leaving the competition with seven teams.
Ethan Rusbatch is a New Zealand basketball player for the Hawke's Bay Hawks of the New Zealand National Basketball League (NZNBL). He began his New Zealand NBL career in 2012 with the Southland Sharks after spending one season in the United States playing college basketball for Lincoln Trail College. After playing for the Taranaki Mountainairs in 2013, he spent the next four seasons with the Canterbury Rams. He joined the Hawks in 2018 and won the NZNBL's Most Improved Player in 2019. He also played two seasons with the New Zealand Breakers in the Australian NBL.
James Norcliffe is a novelist, short story writer, poet, editor, teacher and educator. His work has been widely published and he has been the recipient of a number of writing residencies. Several of his books have been shortlisted for or won awards, including The Loblolly Boy which won the New Zealand Post Junior Fiction Award in 2010. He lives at Church Bay, Lyttelton Harbour, New Zealand.
Laurence Fearnley is a New Zealand short-story writer, novelist and non-fiction writer. Several of her books have been shortlisted for or have won awards, both in New Zealand and overseas, including The Hut Builder, which won the fiction category of the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards. She has also been the recipient of a number of writing awards and residencies including the Robert Burns Fellowship, the Janet Frame Memorial Award and the Artists to Antarctica Programme.
Allan Neil MacLean was a New Zealand District Court judge and that country's first chief coroner, from 2007 to 2015. He was the coroner during the Pike River Mine disaster and the Christchurch earthquakes.
