BY BARNABAS MANEBONA
IT’S 30 years of hard work, Margaret Tetepe continues to maintain her hard work in administration.
She is currently one of the longest-serving administration officers at Woodford International School.
Inside this week’s Women’s Newspaper, she shares her life story in how she came to be where she is today.
To be an administrator one needs to handle great responsibility, patience, courage, willingness, commitment, and great leadership abilities to be a good planner and organizer to run a business, school, or other institutions.
Many officers work in this line of work while many have also retired from it.
Many also understand this line of work while many don’t. Some may just be new to understanding this line of work.
For Margaret Tetepe, it has been a long time now as far as she knows since engaging in the line of work in administration.
Coming from a simple family being the daughter of a priest, Margaret was born on June 11th, 1948.
She is originally from North/East Small Ngella at Belagha village and was the only female in her family with four brothers.
She was the firstborn of her family.
At a very young age of five in 1958, she left her family to attend primary school at Saint Hilda’s Girls School at Bungana Primary School in South Ngella.
She attended grades one to six at Bungana before traveling to do her grade seven at Saint Mary’s Girls School at Pamua in Makira province.
After attending three years of schooling at Pamua, Margaret who had scored so high in her school grades was awarded the Australian Board of Mission Scholarship to further her studies in Australia.
She was 14 years old when she left for Australia in the year 1967. The program she undertook while studying in Australia was Business Studies which studied at Saint Catherine’s Church of England Girls College at Warwick in Queensland.
After three years of studying in Queensland, Margaret returned for her holidays in the Solomon Islands in 1969 where she discovered that her father had a stroke.
“Because of my father’s illness, I decided not to return to Australia to complete my studies. I had to help in looking after my father and smaller siblings,” said Margaret.
“I later suggested doing commercial certificate courses which involved Book Keeping and Typing at the Solomon Islands Government Education branch at the Secretarial Centre of the Honiara Technical Institute (HTI) in Honiara.
“After attending and receiving my certificates, I started working doing clerical works at the High Court for about four months.
“This was because the atmosphere I worked in during then at the High Court was so orderly and dominated by male expatriates where I was the only female and only local working amongst them which caused me to feel out of place most times.
“So I resigned from the High Court and went to work at the Public Works Department (PWD) for four years,” she said.
In her line of work, she worked in the typing pool division in which she and her coworkers did all the typing for PWD.
After four years of working at PWD, she then went to work as the personal secretary for the then-District Commissioner Jim Tedder at the old Guadalcanal Headquarters in Point Cruz.
She spent another four years working at the District Commission Margaret then she went to work at the Police Headquarters at Rove for three years.
In her line of work at the Rove Headquarters, she continued doing clerical work.
“Within these three years, I usually started working in the morning till 11 pm late.
“As my firstborn daughter was a baby during then, her wellbeing was what mattered to me most so I resigned from working at the Police Headquarters.
“I later went to work in the administration office at the Honiara Gas Centre which was later called the Melanesian Traders in which I worked at this Speed Gas Company for seven years.
“Due to some circumstances I resigned and went to work as a Pidgin Teacher for expatriates at Peace Corps located in Point Cruz.
“I then left Peace Corps a couple of months later and went to work in the administration office of Jolly Hardware and Building Construction at Ranadi,” said Margaret.
During her time at Jolly Hardware was when Jolly Hardware and Building Construction had built some of the famous buildings we know and see today such as the Magistrate Court, LKP Hardware, Woodford International School (WIS), and many more.
She worked four years at Jolly Hardware before she resigned due to other obligations.
“After I finished working at Jolly Hardware I went to work as a part-timer in the administration office of a Taxi service fleet Company called ‘J and M’ Taxi Service.
“J and M Taxi Service was the first taxi fleet to use radio controllers in Honiara.
“My part-time at the Taxi Service was just so to maintain bread and butter on the table for my children and also to support them in their school fees while waiting for any positive response from many applications sent.
“During my time at J and M Taxi Service, I was then called to interview at Woodford International School (WSI) along with several shortlisted candidates in which I got the job. I first worked as a Secretary Officer then Administration, Executive officer, and now the Accounts Manager for both the Primary and Secondary schools at WIS.
“All these divisions are all under or in the Administration field,” she said.
Margaret Tetepe started working at WIS in 1986, July 9th.
By July 9th this year it will be her 31st year working at WIS. Her work usually works beginning at 8 o’clock till late in the evenings.
She usually gets up at 5:30 am to start her day in which she usually arrives at WIS School around 7 o’clock.
In 1998 she was awarded a “Pride of Workmanship” award by the Rotary International for her hard work in administration at Woodford School. An award well deserved.
“I thank the Lord for guiding me throughout my life in school and in work, I have been blessed with a wonderful family you could ever ask for.
“I thank everyone who has supported me one way or another throughout my journeys in life with courage, trust, and faith I am still able to sustain my living since ‘day one I was introduced to the world of education,” she said.
Today, Margaret is still hardworking as she has ever been and there seems to be no breaks or slowing her down in her passion for what she loves doing best in the work of administration.
If you visit the administration’s office at Woodford School you will see her always being very busy as usual.
She can be best described as a role model for youths and young women who just entered employment and those currently engaged in employment.
One needs to be dedicated and love whatever job he or she is engaged in. But remember a hardworking attitude needs to be nurtured into one’s daily work routine.
