HŌHEPA RAWIRI TIPENE

Sheep farmer, shearing legend and kaumātua who kept the whānau fed and laughing

Haere rā, e koro. The shearing shed at Tolaga Bay went quiet on the morning of 3 May 2026, and for the first time in sixty years no one heard the whine of Joe Tipene's handpiece at dawn. Born in 1946 at Tolaga Bay on the East Coast of the North Island, into the Ngāti Porou whānau of a shepherd and a weaver, he left school at fifteen to follow the shearing gangs from Gisborne to the Wairarapa, and was soon the fastest blade on the coast.

He reached the senior final at the Golden Shears in Masterton in 1971, and always said that finishing fourth taught him to laugh at himself. In 1974 he and his wife Mere took over a six-hundred-hectare hill-country station inland from Tolaga Bay, where for forty-two years they ran Romney ewes across steep and unforgiving country. He was a patient farmer who knew every ridge and gully, lambed through snow and gave away more mutton than he sold. A kaumātua of his marae, he led karakia, welcomed visitors with a pōwhiri that was said to be funny and moving in equal measure, and taught young men to shear without hurting the sheep or themselves. He chaired the marae committee for twenty years and helped rebuild the whare kai.

He fished off Tolaga Bay wharf, sang old hymns and Māori Battalion songs in a rumbling baritone, and cooked a hāngī so tender that men drove for hours to be invited. Mere died in 2018. Joe died peacefully at home on 3 May 2026, aged seventy-nine, with his whānau around him. He leaves his children Aroha, a doctor trained at the University of Auckland, Tāne and Hine, and eleven mokopuna. Moe mai rā, e koro.

“Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui: be strong, be brave, be steadfast.”