Beverley Joy Price

Beverley Price was a much loved teacher of Latin and French (and hockey coach) at Westlake Girls’ High School. She was definitely one of my favourite teachers and had a gentle and patient way of teaching. She was kind and had a great sense of humour. I never saw her lose her temper (even teaching rowdy 14-year-old girls French!). Outside of teaching, she was an extremely experienced, respected and keen tramper and mountaineer. She was part of an all-women alpine group in New Zealand and in the 1970s was part of a Himalayan expedition where four of her group were killed. Beverley took early retirement at only around 47. She lived with her mother and a year after retirement they bought tickets to Antarctica as Christmas presents for each other to realise Beverley’s life-long dream of visiting there. Source: Deborah Walker (former pupil) via https://insights.nzherald.co.nz/apps/2019/erebus/

On the morning of 28 November 1979, Air New Zealand Flight TE901 left Mangere airport, Auckland, for an 11-hour return sightseeing flight to Antarctica. At 12.49 p.m. (NZST), the aircraft crashed into the lower slopes of Mt Erebus killing all 237 passengers and 20 crew on board. It was the worst civil disaster in New Zealand's history. Source: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/erebus-disaster