Roy McKenzie

Sir Roy Allan McKenzie ONZ KBE (7 November 1922 – 1 September 2007) was a New Zealand horse breeder and racer, and was well known for his philanthropy.

McKenzie was the son of Sir John McKenzie, who founded the McKenzies retail chain. He was born in Wellington but went to school at Timaru Boys' High School and attended the University of Otago. During World War II he served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the British Royal Air Force as a bomb aimer. He married Shirley Howard in 1948, and they had three children together. [http://www.jrmckenzie.org.nz/content/view/19/34/ JR McKenzie Trust - later generations] ] He was captain of the New Zealand ski team in the 1952 Winter Olympics; the first Winter Olympics that New Zealand entered.

He worked as a chartered accountant after the war, and was the Executive Director of McKenzies (NZ) Ltd from 1949 - 1970. He also served as a director for several other companies.

From 1955 he was the principal at the Roydon Lodge horse stud, and he bred, trained and raced many leading horses. [ [http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/news/2007/09/023.shtml Horsetalk obituary] ]

From 1947 to 1993, McKenzie was on the Board of the J R McKenzie Trust, which had been established by his father in 1940 to distribute a proportion of the profits from his businesses for the benefit of the people of New Zealand. For 23 years, McKenzie chaired the Trust. He set up two other grant-making bodies: the McKenzie Education Foundation and the Roy McKenzie Foundation.

McKenzie was also patron of the Outward Bound Trust, and a councillor at the Council for Educational Research. In 1978 McKenzie helped found New Zealand's first hospice, Te Omanga. [ [http://www.teomanga.org.nz/Article.aspx?ID=664 Te Omanga - How it all began] ] In 1990 he played a major role in setting up Philanthropy New Zealand, which was a regular meeting of charitable groups in New Zealand. [ [http://giving.curie.signify.co.nz/knowledge/study6 Philanthropy New Zealand - Our patron, a 'hands-on' philanthropist] ]

Sir Roy was knighted in 1989 for services to the community. He became a member of the Order of New Zealand, and Victoria University and Massey University bestowed honorary doctorates upon him.

A film about his life, "Giving It All Away", was made in 2004 and screened at the 2005 SXSW Film Festival. [ [http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11685 eFilmCritic.com Giving It All Away] ]

Publications

* "The Roydon Heritage". 1978. The Roydon Lodge horse stud.
* "Footprints - Harnessing an Inheritance into a Legacy". 1998. ISBN 0958204608. Memoirs.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10461367&pnum=0 New Zealand Herald obituary]
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/21/db2104.xml Obituary, "The Daily Telegraph", 21 September 2007]