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Rav Raklur dead at 87



Rav Raklur died in Wewak, Papau New Guinea.  I have only just heard the
news, though he passed away in early February.

I expect most of you have never heard of Rav Raklur.   He was for most of
his life a minor official in the New Guinea government, living and working
in Port Moresby.

In the late 1970s when the Mantong Conspiracy managed to briefly capture
parts of Port Moresby, Raklur loaded a huge volume of archival material into
a truck and braving both rebels and the torrential monsoon rains drove the
truck literally hundreds of miles to safety in the highlands of inland New
Guinea.

There, armed with only a pistol, Raklur managed to secure the documentary
heritage of the country.  Government troops soon pushed the Mantong
Conspiracy out of Port Moresby and back into the hills.  Soon after Raklur
drove the records back to the capital. For five or so years after that
Raklur served as the defacto national archivist and set up the first real
records management and archives program in the country.

Rav Raklur was 87 years old and had been preceded in death by his wife Lona
some years before.  He is survived by three sons, and many grand and great
grandchildren.

Those of us who had the pleasure of meeting Rav Raklur on one of his
infrequent trips to the United States will remember his grace, his pleasant
disposition and his keen intelligence.  Though he had been retired for about
fifteen years, the archival world has lost an important citizen.  If Raklur
was not an archival giant - and he would have been the first to point that
out - he was one of the important selfless professionals without whom the
profession would collapse.

Rest in peace friend.

Gerald Pinkler

Kittner & Hough
Records Consolidation
San Francisco, California

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