Two Southlanders have received Queens Service Medals at an investiture ceremony in Christchurch.  

Malcolm Walker, of Winton, received his QSM for services to sport and education, while Lester Dean, of Invercargill, was honoured for his services to the Pacific community. 

Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy presented the medals to both men, at Christchurch Town Hall on Friday.

Walker, principal of Limehills School for 23 years, has been heavily involved in a variety of sports throughout his life. 

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He coached schoolchildren’s cricket for more than 40 years, volunteered for Central Western Cricket Club, and represented New Zealand himself in Master's Cricket. 

He's coached and organised various sports teams, driven fundraising projects, sat on the Southland Primary Schools Athletics Committee, and was a founding member of the Central Southland Squash Club. In 2001, he was also awarded the New Zealand Volunteer Coach of the Year and Southland Volunteer Coach of the Year. 

Through his career, he chaired the regional principal support network, sat on numerous education-based committees, and chaired the Deep Cove Hostel Trust Education Sub-committee. 

Lester Dean with Dame Patsy Reddy

Lester Dean was also a school principal, of both Kew School and founding principal of New River Primary School when it merged. 

He was general manager of Pacific Island Advisory and Cultural Trust in Invercargill from 2011 to 2014. He helped establish an early childhood centre for Pacific children, a homework and afterschool programme at a Pacific Island church, and the ‘Toa Scholarship’ programme for Year 12 and 13 Pacific students. 

Until he retired from paid work in March, he was chief executive of Pacific Trust Otago (PTO) in Dunedin for six years, leading it through a period of financial uncertainty, restructuring to stay in operation and seeking alternative income streams such as a joint venture with a local business to establish container housing business Pacific Pods Limited. 

He lives in Invercargill, where he moved from the Cook Islands in the 1960s.