Year: 1987 - 1988
Occupation: Fashion Designer

Rebecca’s Wikipedia entry says she went to St Catherine’s College, but like many Wellingtonians she came to High in the senior years so she could be creative and do fashion design. Rebecca Taylor arrived in NYC after graduating from the Wellington School of design, and has been designing her signature collection since 1996. The Rebecca Taylor collection is best known for providing the eternally evolving modern girl with fresh, feminine clothing to compliment and refine her individual sense of style. Through a series of collaborations and partnerships, the collection has grown to offer handbags, shoes, jewellery, eyewear, swim, and a “pink label” collection created exclusively for Rebecca Taylor retail stores. Rebecca Taylor is now distributed in over 40 countries, and 250 cities world-wide with celebrity clientele including Reese Witherspoon, Katherine Heigl, Rachel Bilson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicole Richie, and Vanessa Hudgens, to name a few. The collection can be found globally in about 500 outposts including better contemporary boutiques, select department stores, leading e-commerce sites, and Rebecca Taylor retail stores in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and a flagship store in Manhattan’s NoLita. Rebecca is an avid supporter of the ASPCA and only uses ethical furs in her collections. She supports charities such as the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation, the North Shore Animal League and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Over the past 13 years, Rebecca Taylor has been featured internationally in numerous leading publications such as Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Elle, Marie Claire and In-Style.

Year: 1984 - 1988
Occupation: Actor

Tandi was a television and film actress and the grand-daughter of past principal Priestley. After graduating from Toi Whakaari, Tandi became Nurse Caroline Buxton in Shortland Street from 1996-1999 – Tandi is a prolific actor and has been in many NZ and Australian TV programmes and series which include: Being Eve (2001), Crash Palace, Atlantis High, Willy Nilly, Street Legal and Mercy Peak. In 2004 Wright found herself suffering various indignities on Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby. She played the kindhearted teacher who falls for the charms of hypocritical, egotistical counsellor Steve Mudgeway. Wright has also played small parts in a number of feature films, including the 1992 road movie Absent Without Leave to a role as a mad scientist, in the popular Black Sheep (2006). In 2006 Tandi Wright faced the “extraordinary challenge” of playing a mother caught up in the horrors of the Aramoana killings in Out of the Blue, for which she was nominated for best supporting actress in the 2008 NZ Film and TV Awards. In 2010, she played the role of Callie, the wife of the main character in This Is Not My Life, and as Mandy, Cheryl’s sister in Outrageous Fortune.

Year: 1986 - 1987
Occupation: Musicians – Shihad

Tom and Jon are the driving force behind the band Shihad. They showed musical promise from a young age and left school in 1988 with three songs already playing on the radio. Shihad have had phenomenal success and much of it can be attributed to hard work. Since 1988 they have played 1152 live performances all over the world. The band has released 9 albums beginning with Churn in 1993 to Ignite in 2010 and 34 singles from the Dogs are Talking in 1990 to ZM Live Lounge in 2008. Most of the band has been playing together since 1988 and this long established working relationship has helped to make Shihad a household name.

Year: 1978 - 1981
Occupation: President NZ Council of Trade Unions

Helen Kelly is the president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi (NZCTU). Helen has been a strong advocate for social justice and workers rights all her life. After teaching for two and a half years Helen began her long professional involvement with the union movement. Helen opposed the agenda to change industrial relations legislation to reduce worker’s rights and the proposal to introduce bulk funding for teachers salaries. As assistant secretary of the NZEI in 2000, she saw kindergarten teachers returned to the State Sector after being removed from coverage in 1997. Helen was instrumental in the campaign for pay parity for early childhood education teachers & was lead advocate when it was won in 2002. In that same year, Helen was appointed national secretary of the Association of University Staff and led the campaign for improved salaries for university staff. In 2004 she was elected the vice president of the NZCTU and elected president in 2007. She is the NZCTU’s chief spokesperson on a wide range of issues including economic development, employment law, climate change, social partnership and ACC. Helen leads the NZCTU’s campaigning on pay and employment equity and also co-chairs the Workplace Health and Safety Council. She is responsible for NZCTU international work through the International Trade Union Congress and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Helen is the worker representative to the ILO and is currently worker spokesperson on the economic and social policy committee of the governing body of the ILO.

Year: 1974 - 1978
Occupation: Playwright

Dave Armstrong is a playwright, television writer and columnist. Since leaving Wellington High School he studied music at Victoria University and in Basel, Switzerland and Santa Barbara California. Subsequent employment included working as a professional musician and teacher – he taught for a year at Wellington High School in the mid-1980s. At the same time he started writing for stage and screen. His television credits include Skitz, Shortland Street, Spin Doctors, Spies and Lies, Billy and Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby – the comedy series that he co-created and co-wrote with former Wellington High School student Danny Mulheron. Dave’s plays include Niu Sila, The Tutor, King and Country, The Motor Camp, Le Sud, and Rita and Douglas. He currently writes a weekly column for the Dominion Post. His school friends still think the best thing he ever wrote was ‘How we got the Town Belt’ for the 1974 WHS School Magazine.