Hundreds of mourners from all corners of the country gathered at the Magadze family at Tshifudi village last Saturday to pay their last respects to the retired school principal, Mr Azwiambiwi Solomon Magadze.

Although the ceremony was held at his Tshidzini home, he was buried at the Mbilwi Makanga cemetery.

Speaker after speaker who shared the podium during the ceremony described the deceased as a dedicated educator, a peace-loving person and a true example of a real father. The late Solomon Magadze was born at Mbilwi village outside Sibasa on September 10, 1943. He started schooling at the age of 9. He was the only pupil from Mphaphuli Secondary School in 1960 to obtain a first class in Grade 10 or Junior Certificate (JC) as it was known at the time.

After passing the Junior Certificate, Magadze went to Johannesburg, where he was appointed the payroll clerk in the then Bantu Resettlement Board. He came back to home in 1971 and started working as a temporary teacher at Phaswana Secondary School, where he developed a love towards teaching as a profession.

That prompted him to go for training towards teaching with the defunct Vendaland Training Institute, which was later renamed Tshisimani College of Education.

His first appointment as a qualified teacher was at the Tondalushaka Secondary School in 1974. He moved from one school to the next before his appointment as a headmaster at the Funzwani Primary School in 1986. That was where he worked for 22 solid years until his retirement in 2008.

He succumbed to a long illness on Thursday, September 2. He is survived by three wives and eight children.