Hone Morris

Hone Morris has been passionate about te reo Māori and its beauty ever since he heard the inner call of the language on the passing of a dear friend in 1979. Hone has taught at Waihi Intermediate School (1974), Arahanga Intermediate School (1975–80), and Bader Drive Intermediate as a foundation staff member (1981). He was seconded to Mount Eden Prison in 1982–87 as the senior education officer and then to North Shore City Council as Māori community liaison officer. Hone then worked a term at the Weymouth Youth Institution and then at Rosehill College as HoD Māori from 1992 to 1997.

In 1999 he began a position as assistant director of the professional development programme Whakapiki i te Reo alongside the wonderful mōrehu kuia Pēti Nohotima. He gained his translator and interpreter’s licence in 2004, and stayed on as director of Whakapiki i te Reo until 2008, before moving to Huia Publishers as senior editor Māori in 2009. Hone was then asked to apply for a lecturer position at Te Pūtahia-Toi — School of Māori Knowledge at Massey University/Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa in 2010 and has been at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa ever since, as a senior lecturer and writing his MA thesis ‘Homai, Hoatu, Waiho! Āe rānei me whakahāngū?’ in te reo Māori. In 2022 Hone was promoted to associate professor and is the pūkenga reo/senior scholar in the Office of the DVC Māori.

He has completed writing his PhD, ‘He Kura Whenua, He Kura Reo, He Kura Tangata: Relationships over time between the land, the language, and the people’, examining four land blocks at Takapau-Rākautātahi, and is now working in the area of language and land, focusing on te reo and its beauty.