The Waitaki High Schools Board Of Governors is constituted under the Waitaki High Schools Act of 1878, and the first meeting was held on the 20th of February, 1879. The Boys' High School was opened on the 15th of May, 1883, the corner stone of the building having been laid on the 12th of October, 1881. The Girls' High School was opened in October, 1887. Mr. A. A. McKinnon is secretary to the Board.

Mr. George Rose Hislop , formerly Secretary and Treasurer of the Waitaki High Schools, is the fourth son of the late Dr. John Hislop, of Dunedin. He was born in Edinburgh, in 1856, and arrived in the Colony as an infant with his parents, and was educated in Dunedin. Mr. Hislop was brought up to the soft goods trade in the house of Messrs Sargood, Son and Ewen, and was subsequently for several years in the employment of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, in Dunedin and Oamaru. In 1887 he entered into business as a commission agent in Tyne Street, and was appointed secretary and treasurer of the Waitaki High Schools in February, 1897. He became secretary of the North Otago Jockey Club in 1891. Mr. Hislop was married, in 1891, to a daughter of the late Mr. J. Stratford, of Wellington, and has one daughter. He now (1904) resides in Wellington.