Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990 TAG: 9006150622
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That love, fulfilled in 1983 when Poole got a Presbyterian service agency job in New Zealand, was recognized earlier this year by his being awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship, a major British honor that allows him to do human behavioral research in Scotland, Italy and Israel.
Poole, whose parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. Vernon Poole, live in Southwest Roanoke, now is a senior executive of Presbyterian Support Services. He works from Kerikerei, Bay of Islands, on the North Island of the Pacific nation.
Information from the service agency of the New Zealand branch of the Presbyterian Church said Poole won the prestigious honor for his work in founding Northland Wilderness Experience, similar to the Outward Bound program in the United States.
The Presbyterian agency is a non-profit charitable organization employing more than 3,000 people and is the largest provider of health care and human services outside the government of New Zealand.
The Winston Churchill Fellowship was established in the British Commonwealth in 1965 to enable travel for overseas research that will benefit the country . Fellows are chosen for their standing and experience and for their ability to influence national developments from their ideas.
Poole's travel period started in May with recognition in London.
Poole's father said his son's permanent move to New Zealand came about after participation in the Peace Corps. After growing up a United Methodist in Roanoke, Gary Poole studied at the University of Tampa, later moving on to the University of South Florida to major in criminal justice work and drug abuse rehabilitation.
Through the Australian embassy in Washington, he got a job in the Peace Corps and later went to several overseas nations. In Tokyo he met his future wife, Anne, and the two carried on a transcontinental romance before marrying in Honolulu in 1980. They have three children.
Poole received a masters degree from the University of Hawaii and was doing well in his work there, his father said. But the call to New Zealand remained.
The country requires all immigrants to have a job awaiting them and prospects of keeping it before approving entry, Vernon Poole said. When the social service position came open with the Presbyterian agency, the younger Poole left a stable situation in Hawaii and ventured south.
Gary Poole's dream has been realized. The first job in Auckland led to promotions. He founded a child care and family treatment center and later the wilderness experience for youth at risk from poor environments.
by CNB