Dearest Kloof High School,
Yes, that is my family! We currently live in Richards Bay, a bustling, growing port city. It has been many years since I daily trod your corridors, but you are impossible to forget. How can it be that I spent only 5 years in your hallowed walls when I still feel your foundational support 25 years later? As I imagine myself walking through your familiar shroud, it feels as though I can still hear your bell ringing, the chairs scraping, the desks slamming and the feet shuffling. But the one thing that speaks loudly across the years is the voice of your teachers. Each one had a resounding message for my future, and there are a few which set me on trajectories that I could not have imagined.
Mr Holding held his classroom fort and commanded a deserved respect. Not through oppression and totalitarian rule, but through opening our minds to critically analyse the world around us. If we were willing, he used history as a stage from where he shared humanity’s mistakes. And even when we learned that people have never learned, we still aspired to change the world. The challenge loomed largely. It made us dig deeper than we would have on our own. Thank you, Sir. The world theatre is different because you cared to tell us how.
Mr Cairns set the world alight, literally. It never took much to convince him to yet again unleash volcanic poison in the science class, immediately requiring an exodus to the school fields. His approach to science was one of wonder and child-like amazement, and, if we were willing, we too could play in that wonder-world. Mrs Gosher followed it up with solid, scientific, and mathematical reality and, together, they prepared us to change the world, if we were but willing. Thank you for inspiring us not only with your subject content but with who you are.
Mr Evans set up a calculated future for me. Somehow, he just knew that we could, and so he never stopped drawing the best out of the mathematical recesses of our minds. I will never forget the day the curtain wasn’t just lifted on the world for me; rather, it was ripped completely from its moorings. Mr Evans showed us how to calculate the acceleration of the tip of the shadow, cast by a man walking away from a lamp post. My mind was blown and I was truly humbled, for here was a tool to truly understand, and therefore change the world. Well done, Sir, on inspiring us. Nerds we may have been, but the world suddenly lay at our feet.
And so, Kloof High School, I have taken many steps away from your noisy concrete corridors since then. The plethora of teachers who I have not mentioned is equally important. And today, I am using what you gave me to change the world. I went on to study Electronic Engineering, attaining my Masters in 2000. With your foundations rolling inside me, I have ended up at Bell Equipment, a world-class manufacturer of earthmoving equipment. That may sound humble, but our machines are the most advanced in the world. Your message of changing the world is executing inside the software I write daily to make those mega machines think better and smarter. The message has been rising and getting louder to the point now where we are on the verge of autonomous machinery. Already, our machines can drive themselves, steering towards an interesting, driverless future. It is exciting to see your creation come alive, and I imagine I can understand some of your joy in seeing your students unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
So the world is changing, and you have been instrumental in that. Never give up and never stop producing the excellence you are so well-known for. All I can say for myself is thank you. And for the future generations of Kloof High kids, keep the voice of hope and inspiration sounding clear. You won’t see a fraction of your impact on the world, but I can promise, it is, and will continue to be, dramatically profound.
Some photos of our autonomous test site in the Austrian Alps
Yours sincerely, and God’s richest blessings,
Tim Ellis
Kloof High School, Illustrious Class of 94
