Ken Gray (rugby union)
Kenneth Francis Gray was an international rugby union player from New Zealand. He represented New Zealand in 24 international games, playing lock and later prop forward. He could play on either side of a scrum. In 1970, he refused to tour South Africa in protest at its policy of apartheid and resigned from the game.
He was elected a Hutt County Councillor in 1971 and became a Porirua City Councillor in 1973 when the riding of the County he was the member for, joined Porirua City. Later he was elected to the Hutt Valley Energy Board and to the Wellington Regional Council where he continued to serve until his unexpected death of a heart attack in 1992.
In the 1990 Queen's Birthday Honours, Gray was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to local-body affairs.
In 1992, Gray was selected as the Labour candidate for Western Hutt parliamentary electorate in the 1993 election, but he died before the election. This seat was held by National at the time.
The Petone Rugby Club, where he played, commemorates him with the Ken Gray Academy. The Ken Gray Education Centre was established in a converted shearing shed on the Battle Hill Forest Farm, near the Gray family farm, Pauatahanui Inlet near Pauatahanui, after his death.
