Obituaries Australia

Richard Walker-Powell, who died recently in a plane crash in Kosovo, came to the ANU in his early 20s determined to find an education for himself despite considerable handicaps. He showed that an institution designed for students with a record of high achievement could be made to suit the needs of others. Along the way he made intensive use of the University's support services and persuaded lecturers to adapt their rules and procedures to his purpose of obtaining the education he wanted and was willing to work for. He left those of us who knew him with enormous respect and liking for someone with an overpowering will to learn.

A number of personal circumstances made academic writing especially challenging for Richard, and he could easily have become discouraged and given up. But he was determined to complete his degree, and then to become involved in aid and development work.

He was motivated by a concern for people in need, and a conviction that he should develop his own understanding so that he could do something to make a difference.

This drew him to study political science and history, disciplines that immersed him in the writing which he found so difficult and demanded exceptional efforts from him, pushing his abilities to the limit. His passion for his chosen fields of study meant that he wrote with deep concern about apartheid in South Africa, the Vietnam War, and race relations in the United States.

In his last year Richard enrolled in a year-long unit designed for prospective Honours IV students in Political Science. He was cautioned that his record of marginal Pass grades indicated that he would not be able to manage the work, but he insisted on exposure to the range of theoretical approaches and intellectual history on offer. He arrived at each tutorial having annotated all the readings, ready to debate issues with some of the best and the brightest of Arts-Law students. He needed extra time to prepare essays, but he met his negotiated deadlines. When he received a well deserved Credit in the unit, he was happier than any student with a High Distinction.

During his final year, Richard was fixed on the idea of serving with an aid agency in Africa. He went off to South Africa in search of useful employment and found it in a community housing project.

With the World Food Program he worked in Rwanda and Burundi, and he later wrote from Somalia, not only to recount being shot at while delivering food, but to express his delight at working with refugees in difficult conditions. Other letters from Kenya carried insights into corruption and bureaucratic limitations in aid agencies and on a visit home to Sydney last year he sought information on graduate programs in development administration.

In July, after completing his assignment in Kenya, Richard flew to Kosovo to look for similar work and within two days was head of a food monitoring team in the north. On 13 November he and all others on a twin-engined plane chartered by the World Food Program were killed when it crashed in a remote mountainous area of Kosovo. He was doing what he had always wanted to do.

On paper, Richard's time at the ANU would appear unremarkable, for he had no honours degree, no prizes, no string of High Distinctions. Instead, he had a mastery of setting goals and of self-motivation based on impulses of the heart: curiosity, a concern to develop his talents and a strong desire to be of service. He was a rare student and a graduate of whom the University can be very proud.