From Woe to Go! – Rocky Thom. Introducing Our First Winner of 2025
As I was preparing to write about our first winner for 2025, I sat back and thought about the stories of all our winners so far. Each is unique, as you would expect. But some of our wonderful winners have had more hardship in their few short years then some people ever have who die of extreme old age! As a child, Rocky had to negotiate years of enormous adult challenges and grief which ended in a family tragedy soon after his 14th birthday.
The great Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180AD), was a Stoic Philosopher. His writings (Meditations) spoke frequently of how to manage adversity. He often wrote that although terrible things can come our way, we survive better when we react to them in a moderate way – we strip the challenge and horror away from the incident/attack and refuse to be defined, devastated or hurt by what has taken place. We do our best to minimise the impact. We focus on what we can control and foster resilience and inner strength.
This doesn’t mean that those who suffer terrible hardship turn into brutal dispassionate people who lack empathy. On the contrary, those who suffer terribly but choose to thrive rather than simply survive grow into caring and calm people who reach out to others who suffer. Because they understand.
Rocky Thom. Our first winner for 2025
Rocky is a Stoic.
Rocky’s Mum is Japanese, and his father was a kiwi. Rocky was born in New Zealand but has recently engaged more intensively with his Japanese culture. He is bilingual and considers Japanese to be his first language. An excellent and caring student when he was at school, he chose to delay his flight training so he could work full time to raise funds.
Rocky’s father struggled with chronic mental health issues and an addiction to gambling which eventually culminated in the loss of the family home. Inevitably, this caused enormous tension within the family and as young children, Rocky and his brother had to negotiate the increasingly stressful environment at home as they tried to prosper at school and in their community.
Eventually, Rocky’s parents divorced, and Rocky’s mother took on sole responsibility for the upbringing of her boys. Sadly, Rocky’s dad’s mental health spiralled ever downwards, taking his own life soon after Rocky’s 14th birthday.
In his later teen years, Rocky’s family life stabilised. He was able to turn his attention to getting the best grades he could at school and taking positive steps towards his goal of becoming an airline pilot.
First solo! Wohoo!
Through his mother’s almost herculean efforts, Rocky was able to attend Christchurch Boy’s High School. Rocky didn’t waste this blessing and was an exemplary student Passing NCEA levels with Merit and Excellence. Rocky was awarded the 2023 Prime Ministers Vocational Excellence Award for his effort in preparing to become a pilot.
In his school community, he volunteered as a tutor to others and represented the school at ANZAC services, participated in school organised river, beach and park clean-up operations.
Despite the stressful family life unfolding as he grew, Rocky had a passion for aviation for as long as he could remember. Every time he experienced or saw an aircraft take off, he had always dreamt it was him at the controls. As childhood gave way to the teen years, this idea of becoming a pilot was always in his mind, even through the upheavals and tragedy unfolding in his family life. As he learnt research skills, he utilised them to research what was required to achieve his goal. He chose school subjects advantageous to flying and also enrolled in the Gateway Program that his school offered.
For Rocky, any other career is inconceivable.
Passing his PPL Flight Test with Flight Examiner Pete Dixon
Rocky is currently at IAANZ and is nearing the end of the cross country phase.
He has wrapped up theory training and is currently hour building, exploring the serene scenery of the South Island. He’s loving the views and feels blessed to conduct flight training in such environments. He’s hoping the weather allows him to take friends and family to the West Coast, Mackenzie country, and other wonderful places so he can share the breathtaking sights.
After hour building, he’ll enter the expensive MEIR phase, learning the art of flying twin engine aircraft under instrument flight rules and then onwards to CPL to finish his Diploma. He feels it’s been a fantastic journey so far.
Ross Sparks, the Head of Training at IAANZ is succinct in his appraisal of Rocky – “He’s a natural pilot, wants it and is a leader”. Everything he needs to be a successful pilot.
John and I were quite taken with Rocky’s quiet and determined maturity. He’s a strategic thinker, shown by the fact he took a year between the end of school and beginning his training so he could earn vital funds to cover the funding shortfall. He’s a gentle soul who cares for others, and a quiet achiever.
John chose to personally sponsor Rocky.
We are proud to welcome Rocky to our growing Scholarship family and look forward to watching his progress.
Rocky with his first ever passengers
