{"id":455792,"date":"2026-06-01T18:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/455792\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T18:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:13:15","slug":"kings-birthday-honours-2026-keith-bones-lifetime-in-swimming-recognised-with-ksm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/455792\/","title":{"rendered":"King\u2019s Birthday Honours 2026: Keith Bone\u2019s lifetime in swimming recognised with KSM"},"content":{"rendered":"

He has been a team manager at a range of national meets, a member of the HBPBS board since 2003, serving as chairman from 2004 to 2018 and again since 2024, and a Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) national referee since 2003.<\/p>\n

He was made a life member of HBPBS in 2013 and received an SNZ distinguished service award two years ago.<\/p>\n

He has also been a member of the Hawke\u2019s Bay Water Polo Association board since 2020.<\/p>\n

But the biggest deal is having been involved in helping establish the Hawke\u2019s Bay Regional Aquatic Centre at the Mitre 10 Regional Sports Park, through the high-performance facilities vision of Sir Graeme Avery and Bruce McTaggart.<\/p>\n

Two decades ago, he was calling for a deeper, bigger pool in Hawke\u2019s Bay, but the new centre, opened in 2022<\/a>, is something he says he never would have thought possible.<\/p>\n

He can\u2019t stay away from swimming, both swimming for his own health and taking swim classes for seniors three days a week, and is adamant that sport across all ages is about as important as it gets.<\/p>\n

With the Government\u2019s Budget looming, and unable to recall any time sport had featured in the annual announcements, he said: \u201cEvery dollar spent in sport is essential. Sport, swimming are great, but might be just a part of what children are learning as life skills. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike every sport, we are struggling for volunteers,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my annual report, I\u2019m saying our swimmers are on a journey; let\u2019s go on that journey with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doug Laing is a Hawke\u2019s Bay Today reporter, with 53 years in full-time journalism, the past 39 continuously in Hawke\u2019s Bay, covering news events and issues, since rejoining the Daily Telegraph, Napier, in 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He has been a team manager at a range of national meets, a member of the HBPBS board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2246,6325,14144,26985,1459,42,7560,78,302,44180,27981,231640,6453,24350,43,19764,11547,1461,7806,17933,13917,1361,20110,14005,40,38,41,39,1316,102,6730],"class_list":["post-455792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2246","tag-birthday","tag-bone","tag-bones","tag-email","tag-headlines","tag-honours","tag-in","tag-its","tag-keith","tag-kings","tag-ksm","tag-lifetime","tag-modern","tag-news","tag-received","tag-recognised","tag-scam","tag-sign","tag-swimming","tag-telling","tag-that","tag-thought","tag-times","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-when","tag-with","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455792","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=455792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}