VC honours long-service staffers

Long standing: Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price with 35-year long service award recipient and UCT Registrar, Hugh Amoore.

Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price compared the careers of long-service award recipients to a religious vocation, speaking at the presentation function on 1 October.

"Your work at UCT goes far beyond just being a job," he said. "There is a vocational element to it, a calling on your life as powerful as any religious vocation."

Price handed awards to a number of UCT stalwarts for 15, 25 and 35 years of service. Attending the event to receive their 35-year service awards were:

Hugh Amoore, who began serving UCT in his student days as a Students' Representative Council member, and rose to the position of Registrar;

Charles Fortune, known to his friends as Mr Matambo, started his UCT career at age 21 in the plumbing workshop, and is a handyman with a number of duties;

Cassiem Kahn joined UCT as a plumbing assistant, and continues to serve in the maintenance purchasing department;

Linda Krawitz joined UCT Libraries as a "break" after her travels, and stayed on. She worked in the Law Library for 20 years and now serves in the acquisitions department;

Antonia Markus has expanded her area of expertise during her time as a cleaner/messenger in the Anaesthetic Laboratory. She now assists with chemical analysis and has become an experienced laboratory assistant;

Henry van Rensburg (left) couldn't read or write when he first joined UCT in 1970. He is now an assistant supervisor in the post room;

Ernest Stout, aka 'Tjokkie', joined the Department of Geological Sciences when it was still known as the Department of Geochemistry in the '70s where he meticulously carries out analytical determinations;

Terence Willis was 16 when he began his career at UCT. He has worked in all three divisions of the Animal Unit.

Also honoured with 35-year long service awards were Ramela Bhaga and Clive van Graan, who could not attend the ceremony.