{"id":454335,"date":"2026-05-31T17:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T17:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/454335\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T17:49:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T17:49:18","slug":"kings-birthday-honours-2026-scottish-country-dance-teacher-debbie-roxburgh-made-a-member-of-the-new-zealand-order-of-merit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/454335\/","title":{"rendered":"King\u2019s Birthday Honours 2026: Scottish country dance teacher Debbie Roxburgh made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge honour, and I\u2019m really grateful for the recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scottish country dancing is a style of group dance where participants trace set patterns with choreographed footwork to upbeat traditional fiddle music originating in Scotland.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s considered a modern version of ballroom dancing which was popular in Scotland during the 18th century.<\/p>\n

Roxburgh first took up Scottish country dancing in the 1970s in Christchurch while searching for a new hobby.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom day one I absolutely loved it. I would be out dancing three, or four, or more times a week in those early years, and I just honestly haven\u2019t stopped dancing or teaching since.\u201d<\/p>\n

She met her husband at a dance in Timaru, and many of her family now dance too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a family pastime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roxburgh moved to Whanganui in 1984 for her job at the National Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 1987, she took up teaching at the city\u2019s Glendarroch Scottish Country Dance Club, where she still teaches weekly and is a life member.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, she helped establish a syllabus for medal test examinations for junior dancers and created the Junior Associate Membership.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It gave] our younger dancers something of a target, something to aspire to in terms of improving their dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roxburgh has served as youth co-ordinator, rules committee convener, member of the New Zealand branch management committee, and an appointed RSCDS examiner, regularly conducting examinations for new teachers in New Zealand and Australia.<\/p>\n

She has also served on organising committees for several annual week-long residential schools for New Zealand and international dancers, including at St Andrews in Scotland.<\/p>\n

She was the first New Zealand teacher to be invited to St Andrews, she said.<\/p>\n

During the Covid-19 pandemic, she taught online classes from her living room. Her first class had more than 1000 people in the online audience, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cReal highlights for me are actually just seeing people who are learning to dance getting real pleasure from growing confidence and capability around their own dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She teaches an adult class and a children\u2019s class each week at Glendarroch club for RSCDS, and a monthly advanced class.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a real thrill to see people who I\u2019ve taught to dance as children returning to dancing as adults and then bringing their own children along.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scottish country dancing gave her friends from all over the world, and the social side to it was what made it special for her, Roxburgh said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] a wonderful combination of fun, fitness, and friendship. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really want dancing to be accessible to as many people as possible … If I can achieve that, I\u2019m a very happy person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erin Smith is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s a huge honour, and I\u2019m really grateful for the recognition.\u201d Scottish country dancing is a style of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[836,2246,50374,1558,6325,2841,2006,7502,17464,7560,66403,27981,1362,1329,127385,130,117,111,43,139,69,1118,29691,231139,49926,7574,131,223,21083,1530,80],"class_list":["post-454335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-836","tag-2246","tag-active","tag-been","tag-birthday","tag-country","tag-dance","tag-dancing","tag-debbie","tag-honours","tag-involvement","tag-kings","tag-made","tag-member","tag-merit","tag-more","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-order","tag-roxburgh","tag-scottish","tag-teacher","tag-than","tag-the","tag-whanganuis","tag-years","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}