It wasn't about who you are, where you are from or how you performed. 'It came down to whether you had a strong song” according to Simon Elton – one of the three Te Puke Highway song contest judges.

And according to Simon, Auckland Breeze breakfast radio host Robert Rakete researched Te Puke online and came up with a 'nice, bouncy song with a real summery feel that was truly reflective of Te Puke”.

Radio jock turned minstrel Robert Rakete, pictured with radio co-host Anne Thomas, won the Te Puke Highway song contest. Photo: Supplied.

The song goes:

'Come along, it's a great big world,

'If you wanna take my hand I can take you for a whirl,

'To a place where the sun and the hills unfurl,

'It's a place we call Te Puke.”

The song was picked as the winner from around forty songs submitted for the contest, which was part of the town's mid-winter festival.

It also celebrated the town reclaiming a chunk of State Highway 2, which runs through the town and has been renamed Te Puke Highway.

The only provisos were the song has to contain the name Te Puke and the catch phrase 'Te Puke Goodness Grows Here.”

'I just tried to paint a picture with my words” says a delighted Robert Rakete, fresh from another breakfast gig on The Breeze.

One entry came from Melbourne, and another from a Te Puke Primary School.

'Robert's entry stood out from the beginning for me personally” says Simon. 'It has good structure, has a country-ish feel and it's inviting – inviting you to come to Te Puke.”

Mark Boyle of the Te Puke Economic development Group says the contest worked a treat.

'It created a lot of goodwill and good feeling,” says Mark. 'We got a song and a highway, so it's all feel good stuff.”

If there was any criticism of the song it would be its length, at just one minute and 56 seconds.

However, Rakete is now conjuring up another verse so it can be reconfigured for radio play and it's hoped the song will eventually become an anthem for Te Puke.