Church College of New Zealand

Story

Church College of New Zealand was a private secondary school in Temple View, Hamilton, New Zealand, that was operated by the Church Educational System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . It was closed at the end of the 2009 school year.HistoryConstruction of CCNZ began in 1952. In 1955, the LDS Church announced that it would construct a temple in Hamilton. LDS Church president David O. McKay initially went to New Zealand to downsize the building programme. After visiting the project, McKay was so impressed with what he saw and felt he decided to add two more buildings to the school's construction. These buildings were later named the David O. McKay Auditorium and the Matthew Cowley Administration Building. CCNZ and the New Zealand Temple were built on the same 35 hectare site, in what later became known as Temple View, a suburb of Hamilton. Both facilities were built entirely by LDS Church volunteer labour missionaries. CCNZ was dedicated and formally opened on 26 April 1958 by McKay. Clifton D. Boyack was the school's first principal.ConstructionFoundations were laid for CCNZ in the early 1950s. The first visit to a property in the area occurred in 1950. The mission president, Gordon C.Young, drove out to the area, and when first seeing the site as he drove over a nearby hill where he pictured in his mind white buildings on the property and immediately felt this was the place the LDS Church was to build a school. He arranged to acquire the property the same day. Interestingly enough, he specifically stated many times that he did not ever see the temple on the property in vision because he had only been given the assignment to find property and also that only the LDS Church president could propose sites for a new temple. Church representatives from Utah came and inspected the property, and members of the church from all over New Zealand slowly moved into the area to work as labor missionaries on the project.