Uploaded December 2018 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Freddie Marang started working at the South African Astronomical Observatory in 1978 as a Night Assistant at the Sutherland Observatory. He showed such potential that he later became an observer on nearly all the telescopes at the time. When SALT came on line, Fred took up the challenge and became one of the first SOs (SALT Operators). Although he officially retired in 2010, he is still working regularly at SALT.
After realising that Fred has 40 years service, his colleague, Thea Koen thought it would be a great idea to honour him for this at the 2018 Year End Function. The floowing e-mail was sent out to staff, asking for contributions for this video:
Hi All
Thea Koen came to the realisation that Fred Marang has been working for 40 years at the Observatory (even though he retired 8 years ago), and is by no means finished, as he is still doing duty as SALT Operator regularly.
She thought it would be great to surprise him at the Year-end party with a video of messages from colleagues, reminiscing about incidents and memories, while working with him over these years, and asked Chantal and myself to help with this. Thea already started doing recordings during the recent SALT Board meeting and will continue when she's back in December. Chantal and I are also going to do some recordings in Cape Town, so if you could gather some thoughts in the meantime, it would be great. Also please indicate your availability or unavailability to us, particularly of you want to leave him a message.
Note that Fred was temporarily removed from the staff list when sending this email, so please don't "Reply to All", but rather reply to Chantal & I directly.
Thanks very much
Willie
Freddie Marang started working at the South African Astronomical Observatory in 1978 as a Night Assistant at the Sutherland Observatory. He showed such potential that he later became an observer on nearly all the telescopes at the time. When SALT came on line, Fred took up the challenge and became one of the first SOs (SALT Operators). Although he officially retired in 2010, he is still working regularly at SALT.
After realising that Fred has 40 years service, his colleague, Thea Koen thought it would be a great idea to honour him for this at the 2018 Year End Function. The floowing e-mail was sent out to staff, asking for contributions for this video:
Hi All
Thea Koen came to the realisation that Fred Marang has been working for 40 years at the Observatory (even though he retired 8 years ago), and is by no means finished, as he is still doing duty as SALT Operator regularly.
She thought it would be great to surprise him at the Year-end party with a video of messages from colleagues, reminiscing about incidents and memories, while working with him over these years, and asked Chantal and myself to help with this. Thea already started doing recordings during the recent SALT Board meeting and will continue when she's back in December. Chantal and I are also going to do some recordings in Cape Town, so if you could gather some thoughts in the meantime, it would be great. Also please indicate your availability or unavailability to us, particularly of you want to leave him a message.
Note that Fred was temporarily removed from the staff list when sending this email, so please don't "Reply to All", but rather reply to Chantal & I directly.
Thanks very much
Willie
