Ngaruawahia High School Yearbooks 2010-2012 Kapa Haka Tour of Western USA 1998 | Página 83

Ngaruawahia High School Kapa Haka USA Tour 1998 - Page 81

Leon and Motuiti joined up with the group
(they had been in Anenan Fork, close to Provo,
with their hosts) and were welcomed by Vernon
Heperi, a Maori who was a school-mate of
Richard Crawford and who was responsible at the
university for the welfare of all the ‘foreign’ and
American Indian students.
We visited the 65,000 capacity Cougar
Stadium (where the University gridiron team
plays) and then on to the 10,000 seat Marriott
Centre where basketball, devotionals and

assemblies are held for the 27,000 students
enrolled. A choir was practicing when the group
entered, getting ready for a devotional assembly.
We walked past the construction site of
America’s largest public genealogical library – all
four stories below ground level.
A waiata was performed in Vernon Heperi’s
administration office to all the staff present.
Vernon supplied the group with a packed lunch, T
-shirts, books and a CD “Go My Son” by the
Lamanite Generation.

Upon arriving at Brigham Young University at Provo we were hosted by Vernon Heperi who showed us, among other
sights, Cougar Football Stadium, which seats 32,000 and has hospitality boxes.