Museum owner honoured

GLENN McLEAN glenn.mclean@tnl.co.nz - Taranaki | Monday, 31 December 2007

Tawhiti Museum creator Nigel Ogle says he agonised over accepting the Queen's Service Medal for service to historical research and museums.


"I wondered what was going on when I got notified," he said.

"All I could think of was that there are plenty of other people doing similar sorts of heritage things in Taranaki. It is a wonderful honour, though."

As he sits hunched over his workbench at the back of his expanding Hawera museum, the smell of his creative work thick in the air, Mr Ogle says he never envisaged being where he is today.

A former teacher, Mr Ogle and his wife, Teresa, are in the middle of creating their biggest project, a $1 million South Seas Traders display, which is being made in partnership with Wellington's Weta Workshop - the Academy Award-winning film modelling and sculpture business.

Equally funded by the South Taranaki District Council and Mr and Mrs Ogle, the project is due to open in October 2009.

"The next 12 months will be the busiest I've ever worked," he said.

"But I've always toyed about doing it and to finally be able to, well, it's an incredible honour."

Founded after Mr Ogle purchased the old Tawhiti cheese factory in 1975, the museum has won seven tourism awards. It has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Taranaki.

At a time when the New Zealand Air Force's Ohakea Museum has closed, as well as Dairyland on the outskirts of Hawera, Mr Ogle said visitor numbers at his museum continued to grow as awareness from outside Taranaki increased.

"An area needs a basket of attractions, and it's sad to see these things fall over."