Article from the 12 January 2007 edition of the Barkly East Reporter
During October the office of the Rhodes Public School in Zakhele was struck by lightning. The school principal Mr Piet Steyn and one of his staff members narrowly missed departing from this world, the bolt having fortunately been deflected from them along electric wiring in the ceiling.
The schools computer, telephone and various pieces of equipment were destroyed. Dave Walker, proprietor of Walkerbouts in Rhodes, sent out an SOS as funds to replace the equipment were not available.
Darrell & Evie Raubenheimer, organizers of the Rhodes Trail Run and Rhodes home owners, responded to the SOS and arranged for donations from various organizations to assist the Rhodes Public School.The donations, which included a computer, monitor and printer, software and stationery, were received from the Rhodes Trail Run Club, BJB Consultants, Cyber Computers and St Dominic’s Priory High School all of Port Elizabeth. An extremely grateful Mr Piet Steyn received the donations on behalf of the Rhodes Public School from the Rhodes Trail Run Club recently. Mr Steyn mentioned that not only were the donations most generous but, as the school received lass than one-third of it’s allocated funding during 2006, the donors would not appreciate just how thankful the staff and pupils would be.
