Remembering a warm and inclusive hostess

Kind personality: Rahimah congratulating (now Tan Sri) Mohd Harris Salleh after his party, Berjaya, won the Sabah elections in 1981. She was elected to her late husband’s Kiulu seat in a by-election in 1976 and became the first Sabah woman Cabinet minister in Mohd Harris’ government that year. — National Archives

I LEARNED with much sadness of the passing of Toh Puan (June) Rahimah Stephens yesterday morning. She was 91.

I had a brief but bright and most memorable association with the Toh Puan and her late husband, Sabah’s first chief minister, Tun Mohd Fuad Stephens, nearly 49 years ago in Australia.