Friday, March 29, 2024

NZ Shears makes welcome return

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King Country wool handler Rahera Kerr tasted some early success at the NZ Shears in Te Kuiti last week, winning the junior wool handling title.
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Kerr was brought up on a Hauturu farm, but these days lives in Te Kuiti and works for New Zealand Shearing Contractors Association president Mark Barrowcliffe.

Her success added to earlier wins at the Central Hawke’s Bay A&P Show in Waipukurau in November and the Rangitikei Shearing Sports North Island Championships in Marton in February.

She has been travelling around following work for the last two years, including down south around Kurow and in South Australia.

“It’s good work. You can travel with it, it’s social and you become family with the people you’re working with,” Kerr said.

More than 200 shearers and wool handlers competed in the three-day championships, which 12 months ago became one of the early casualties of the covid-19 Level 4 lockdown – called off for the first time since the NZ championships were resurrected initially as the new King Country Shears in 1985.

The Level 2 alert that led to the cancellation of this year’s Golden Shears in Masterton a month ago sent shivers up the spines the event’s organisers, but NZ Shears president Claire Grainger says her committee was determined to go ahead, including discussing how that could happen if the alert had remained in place.

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