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Woodbury Store Cafe co-owners Jill Murphy, left, and Dianne Hamilton at the store’s open day on Monday. Fellow co-owner Sue Hardwick-Smith is absent.
It’s been a long haul for the new owners of the Woodbury Store Cafe with Covid-19 pushing plans back by about three months, but finally the restored building has opened its doors to the public. Friends from high school, Jill Murphy and Sue Hardwick-Smith teamed up with “ring in” Dianne Hamilton, purchasing the store which was built in 1874, and used as a general store until its closure in 1993.
Bejon Haswell/Stuff
The floor of the Woodbury Store Cafe, taken back to the original wood.
Bejon Haswell/Stuff
Geraldine High School art teacher Mike Deavoll has retired after 40 years. He is seen next to a set used to illustrate the latest No Laughing Me Publications book, The Puppy Airbus.
Mike Deavoll credits a high school art teacher for seeing potential in him as a teenager which led to his 40 year teaching career at Geraldine High School. While Deavoll retired from the school last week, he will still be involved with its Te Whare Ako students – the learning support arm of the school, and past students, as volunteer chief executive of No Laughing Me Publications. “I didn’t say I’ll be here for 40 years it was just one day after the other,’ Deavoll said.