This year, on Sunday October 9, in recognition of the 160th anniversary of Munro College, 16 persons will be inducted into the Munro College Old Boys Association (MCOBA) Hall of Fame.

This number represents one inductee for each decade of Munro’s existence, and will also match the 16 persons already inducted over the four previous editions of the induction ceremony.

Those eligible for the awards are old boys who have made significant contributions to the school or to society at the national or international level, and members of the school’s administration who have made significant contributions to the institution.

The inaugural ceremony was held on Sunday October 14, 2012, and although other ideas for more annual events are on the table, this one, at least for the time being, is the flagship annual event and fundraiser of the MCOBA. In addition to bringing out schoolmates and family members of the inductees, Munro old boys from diverse year groups have started using the event as a mini-reunion each year, and we encourage this trend to continue.

The Hall of Fame concept was spearheaded by MCOBA President Arthur Williams, while the function itself, usually a brunch with a paid bar, is usually managed by MCOBA 1ST Vice President Elias Azan, assisted by 2nd Vice president Kenry Jackson and Old Boy Courtney Haughton. Save for the 2014 edition in Kingston, the event is staged at Munro College in the Richard B. Roper auditorium, and the school handles the catering, with Munro students helping out as ushers and servers.

Old Boy history buff and former tutor at Munro, Michael Elliot, does most of the research on the nominees, and the final citations are edited by President Williams and MCOBA executive member Tony Morrison, who also usually chairs the ceremony and reads the citations.

The inductees to date are:

2012

Lloyd Lindberg “Lindy” Delapenha

Sporting legend Lloyd Lindberg “Lindy” Delapenha earned school colours at Munro in football, cricket, hockey, tennis, boxing, athletics, and gymnastics.

On two separate occasions he was precocious enough to score centuries, 129 and 126, against a visiting adult team that happened to be a George Headley X1. When Munro won Boys Championships in 1945, the points from Lindy alone would have placed the school third. He came third in the 100 yards, second in the 220, 440, 100 hurdles, and the long jump, and won the 880 and the mile. Incredulous doctors at the meet scrutinized the young phenomenon closely, and because of him, a new rule was instituted, limiting competitors to no more than four events.

By way of the British army, Lindy made his way into English club football, where he became the first Jamaican, and one of the first black overseas players, in the English League. He was to find fame and some fortune in football, so much so that he turned down an offer to run for Britain in the 1948 Olympics, but before his exploits in the English League, his activities in the British army were reminders of his amazing athletic versatility. He represented his battalion and the army in cricket, hockey, athletics, and exhibition diving, and had the distinction of running 10.1 seconds in the 100 yards – on packed sand, and without the benefit of starting blocks.

On returning to Jamaica in 1964, Lindy became a household name after joining the Jamaica Broadcasting Cooperation in 1966 to work with the famous Roy Lawrence, a fellow Munro Old Boy, as a sports commentator. When Lawrence departed in 1968, Lindy was appointed Director of Sports, and his 30 year stint in TV ended in 1997.

Delapenha was inducted for his status as a schoolboy athlete legend, a football legend as an adult, and as a celebrated sports broadcaster.

John Oliver (Jackie) Minott, CD.

John Oliver “Jackie” Minott, former Chairman of the Munro and Dickenson Trust and Chairman of Jamaica Standard Products Company, in addition to the production of tiles and pimento leaf oil, is best known for the production and export of the High Mountain Coffee Brand and as founder of the annual High Mountain Coffee 10K Road Race in Manchester.

Minott indulged both his tough and artistic sides at Munro, playing a role in Shakespeare’s Macbeth as a member of the Munro Dramatic Society, while also earning school colours for boxing, after winning a title in the 70-80 pound division at 11 years old.

Minott was inducted for his achievements as a leading and honourable businessman as well as his several years of sterling service to Munro as an administrator.

Richard B. Roper, OD.

Richard Roper, with his wife Merle beside him, collecting his citation from the late Dr. Keith Peart.

Richard Brooks Duet Roper in 1955 became Jamaica’s youngest ever Headmaster, at twenty-eight, of one of the oldest and most prestigious schools in Jamaica. He was to become known as its greatest ever headmaster to date.

Munro College was all of 99 years old when he took over, and it was already a great school before he had anything to do with it. Since then, however, and up to now, the stellar reputation that Munro College enjoys as the last bastion of educated gentlemen, is due in no small part to the leadership of Richard Roper. He protected the schools best traditions and created his own, and he protected his office. He once told a boy “you can mess with Richard Roper, but you can’t mess with the Head Master of Munro College!”

One might think he was busy enough just dealing with Munro and all the many ways in which the school excelled in his time, academically and otherwise, but his service went far beyond, and he endeared Munro College to its surrounding community. As a Justice of the Peace, he was on call twenty-four-seven, and truly helped to keep the peace. He preached in many churches in the outlying districts, and became head of the Bible Society of the West Indies. He resuscitated the local branch of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, and increased the outreach of the school into the wider community.

Mentor and maestro, icon and institution, leader and living legend, Richard Roper was inducted in honour of his status as a Munro icon and legend and a headmaster par excellence.

Stephen Frederick “Staggy” Harle

The late Stephen Frederick Harle was Richard Roper’s right hand and secret weapon, and as important as that role was, he became a Munro legend in his own right as a brilliant administrator and chemistry teacher, a beacon of ethics and integrity, and a larger-than-life campus personality for the ages.

He came to Jamaica and Munro fresh out of university at age 23 in 1956, and never really looked back. He was rather slim and unimposing then, and the snarl had not yet developed, and so he confessed to initially feeling a bit intimidated by the sixth formers not much younger than he was, and not any smaller.

Stephen Harle became known for many things, but was perhaps best known for teaching chemistry at both Munro College, and its sister school, Hampton, for nearly 50 years, during which he enjoyed an 80 per cent average pass rate for both CXC/CAPE O’ level and GCE/CAPE A’ level chemistry across both schools. In 1989, because they had no chemistry teacher that year, he also taught A’ level students from Manchester High School as well. He famously taught chemistry without a textbook, and barring abject inability, students were almost guaranteed a pass – at least – just by being in his class.

As Roper’s Vice Principal for over 20 years he handled the school’s internal administrative, academic, and disciplinary matters, all while carrying a full teaching load as head of the chemistry department. He served as house master of one of the school’s five houses, taught adult literacy and extension O’ level classes for members of the community, organized Munro’s after-school games programme, organized five different football competitions for the central and western part of the island as well as a neighbourhood football team, and served as Chairman of the Western Athletics Championships and Secretary of the St. Elizabeth Football Association. Single-handedly, he also plotted the school’s complex class timetable each year, without a single clash, ever.

He was honest, direct, impeccably fair, supremely efficient and absolutely dependable. He was brilliant, yet humble, old fashioned in values but visionary in outlook, and he could be very intimidating, but never abused his power.

On the job, he was a studious workaholic who never shirked responsibility, but off the job, he was just as dedicated to having fun. In total contrast to the stern demeanour he maintained in front of the students, Stephen Harle was the life of any party with his adult friends, and his weekend and nocturnal escapades and adventures were legendary. He was the architect, host, and headline attraction at the infamous “Dive” below the staff room, as well as a frequent guest star at neighbourhood bars.

His final decision to make Jamaica his permanent home was made as far back as the 1960’s. He especially loved St. Elizabeth and the people of the parish, and they loved him right back. He especially loved Munro College, and gave it his entire working life.

His beloved chemistry lab with his Bunsen burners, overlooking the sprawling Pedro Plains and the aquamarine ripples of the Caribbean Sea, was his own personal room with a view. To his students, his colleagues, and his friends, Stephen “Staggy” Harle was icon, iron man, legend, leader, mentor, role model, and an institution within the institution.

Steven Harle was posthumously inducted in honour of his status as a Munro icon and legend and as a chemistry teacher and administrator par excellence.

2013

THE MOST HON. SIR DONALD BURNS SANGSTER, ON, KCVO

The late Donald Sangster entered Munro College at ten and boarded in Calder House. He passed eight subjects, including a distinction in Chemistry in 1925 in the Junior Local Cambridge examinations. In 1927 he came second in Jamaica in the Senior Cambridge examinations – the same year that his father died.

Donald was a natural athlete. He first participated in athletic at Class 3 Under -14 in 1924, and won the 100 yards, pole vault, and hurdles, placed second in the 220 yards, and third in the long jump, becoming Class 3 Champion. He was captain of his house cricket team, and as opening batsman for the school team, was described as “hard to dispose of.” After leaving Munro, he became captain of the St. Elizabeth Nethersole Cup cricket team, also played cricket for Mountainside, and joined the Black River Football Club.

After school, he felt the tug to go into politics, and campaigned with his legislator uncle Peter Watt Sangster in the 1930’s. His political career began in 1933, when he won a seat on the St. Elizabeth Parochial Board (now renamed the Parish Council) at the age of 21. He became Vice-Chairman of the Board in 1941 through to 1945, and Chairman in 1947, the youngest in Jamaica’s history.

He believed one should be properly equipped to help people, and so he opted to also study law, and became articled to Solicitor Mervin T. King in Black River. Donald took to law like a duck to water, and in 1937 at 26 years old, he came first in Jamaica in the final Solicitors’ examinations.

His ambitions to help people did not always fit neatly into a JLP or PNP category, and after universal adult suffrage and a new constitution came in 1944 and general elections were held, Sangster ran as an Independent candidate. He lost to B.B. Coke of the victorious Jamaica Labour Party. Donald turned his attention back to his local social issues, and became the secretary of a Tourism Development Association of the parish, exploring ideas like fishing and boating on the Black River, a look-out point at Lovers Leap, the development of beaches, Bamboo Avenue, and the establishment of a craft centre.

The second general elections took place in 1949. This time Donald ran for the JLP, against four other candidates, including the incumbent B.B. Coke who was now an independent candidate. Sangster won, the JLP won again, and party leader Alexander Bustamante assigned him to the Social Welfare portfolio as part of his five member cabinet. One year later, Sangster was elected the first deputy leader of the party, and served in that office for 17 years. In February 1953, Sir Harold Allan died, and Donald Sangster became the new Minister of Finance and leader of the House. From that time on, Donald Sangster became the solid base of the Jamaica Labour Party- the maestro who captured the sometimes overheated statements of Bustamante and marshalled them into legal policy. His consensual approach from a position of knowledge and experience gave stability to the JLP Government. He also became formidable in the outside world of politics – in Washington, in London, and in the Commonwealth, and earned from his colleagues the title of “Mr. Commonwealth.”

After losing to the PNP in 1955, in the general elections of 1962, the JLP again won, and Donald was again returned to the finance portfolio. On March 11, 1963, just before the end of the first year in office as government, the 79 year old Bustamante appointed Donald Sangster as deputy prime minister.

Bustamante’s health deteriorated and he had to relinquish his duties, and in January 1965, he asked the Governor General to appoint Donald Sangster as acting Prime Minister, acting minister of external affairs, and acting minister of defence. In the next general elections held on February 21, 1967, Sangster led the JLP to victory with 33 seats to the PNP’s 20. On February 22, 1967, Donald Sangster was sworn in as Prime Minister of Jamaica.

Less than a month after becoming Prime Minister, on March 18, 1967, Donald Sangster suffered a cerebral seizure while on retreat at Newcastle preparing for the budget. On March 21 he was flown to Montreal Neurological Institute in Canada. On April 7 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II while in a coma. On April 11 he died in hospital in Montreal. On April 17, 1967 he was interred at National Heroes Park after a State Funeral.

The Most Hon. Sir Donald Burns Sangster was posthumously inducted for his stellar leadership and contribution to Jamaican politics.

ANTONY “TONY” KEITH EDMUND HART, CD, JP.

Tony Hart was sent to Munro College in 1941 and left in 1949. Quite the all-round athlete, he represented the school in tennis, shooting, football, and gymnastics.

After school, he began business in his father’s trading establishment, Samuel Hart & Sons in Montego Bay, and had a brief but significant flirtation with the music industry in distant Kingston when he helped Alex Durie and Ken Khouri start the very first record pressing studio in Jamaica on King Street ion Kingston.

It is the expansive and ambitious vision of Tony Hart which is credited for developing the Montego Bay we know today. In 1967, he undertook the massive project of building what is now the sprawling Freeport in Montego Bay, involving dredging the sea in some areas, creating 350 new acres of land where swamp existed before, and installing four berths for ships in what became the largest port in the parish. This project produced 92 acres more than the 258 acres reclaimed in Kingston for Newport West in the same era. Engineering challenges aside, this creation was not without obstacles – the usual suspects; financial and political – but Tony persevered and got it done.

Tony then became Chairman of the Hart Group of Companies, which at one time encompassed an apparel operation with over 3000 employees, a savings and loan company, an Avis rent-a-car licensee, a stevedoring company, and five farms. Good Hope, one of the five, is now a premier visitor attraction in nearby Trelawny.

In recent years, he has become as well known for his philanthropy as for his business prowess.

In addition to mentoring young adults and supporting numerous worthy causes of all kinds, his firm belief is that “if every child in Jamaica is computer competent, then every child in Jamaica can get a job.” Since he also believes that children should be given a solid foundation in the early years, he has set out to computerize one local primary school each year.

In August 2004, Tony Hart, aka Mr. Montego Bay, was honoured by the government of Jamaica for his outstanding contribution to the development of western Jamaica, and was conferred with the Order of Distinction, Commander Class. In 2013, he became the first person from the west of the island to be inducted into the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) Hall of Fame.

Antony “Tony” Hart was inducted for his status as a business icon and leading philanthropist.

Lawrence Wilmot “Laurie” Sharp JP

In 1946 at age eleven, the late Lawrence Wilmot “Laurie” Sharp was sent to Munro College in St. Elizabeth, and there he thrived. He did well in his academic work, excelled in sports, and got into more than his fair share of mischief. He represented the school as a top sprinter in athletics, in hockey, and in cricket, football, and tennis. Tennis took him to Kingston representing Munro, and there, at a reception held for the teams, he met his future wife Barbara Bird.

After Munro and tertiary studies, businessman Laurie Sharp first made his name as Managing Director of Tropiculture Limited. The company became the largest ornamental plant nursery in the Caribbean and Central America, winning numerous national awards for Champion Exporter, even in the turbulent 1970’s.

It was in the coffee business, however, that he became most famous. Laurie, his father-in-law Eustace Bird, and fellow Munronian Trevor Armstrong purchased a Coffee Estate called Clifton Mount in the Blue Mountains in 1977, and it became a prestigious estate, renowned for its famous Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. With companion company Coffee Traders Limited, the family business exported coffee to most of the major markets around the world, and in 1993 Laurie passed the baton to his sons Richard and Jason.

As Chairman of the Munro College Board of Governors, Sharpe presided over a period of resurgence and success for Munro College. The wind turbine was installed and the auditorium completed under his watch, and there was significant improvement in the school infrastructure. Computer competence was encouraged by the construction of a 30-computer laboratory, and 50 million dollars was secured from the International Development Bank for new buildings, including the science lab and the administration block. A grant from the Trafalgar Development Bank was instrumental in transforming the farm operation, making Munro once again self-sufficient in beef, chicken, milk, and eggs. There was he provision of an incentive programs for teachers, and in academics, there was dramatic improvement in test results for Mathematics, English, and the Sciences, and a dramatic increase in the number of boys gaining academic scholarships.

The sports programme was enhanced by refurbishing the infrastructure, including the tennis courts, football, and cricket fields. Munro improved in all sports, especially athletics, football and cricket. For the first time in many years, Munro reached the Da Costa Cup finals. A graduate from his watch, Claston Bernard, won gold in the Heptathlon in the Commonwealth Games, and another, Chadwick Walton, was selected for the West Indies Cricket Team.

Lawrence Wilmot “Laurie” Sharp was posthumously inducted in honour of his achievements as a businessman and more so for his years of stellar service to Munro College as Chairman of the School Board.

PROFESSOR THE HON. MERYVN EUSTACE MORRIS, OM, POET LAUREATE

Mervyn Eustace Morris won a full government scholarship and entered Munro College in 1948. An all-rounder, he was outside right on the 1st XI Hockey team, which won the Henriques Shield; one of the most successful batsmen in 1st XI cricket; was second only to Richard Roberts in badminton, and was on the tennis team which won the Alexander Cup. He was later to represent Jamaica in tennis in 1956, and helped us capture the regional Brandon Trophy. After winning the Rhodes Scholarship, he entered St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, in 1958, and earned the Oxford Blue for three straight years for representing Oxford in tennis.

Despite all this athletic prowess, and despite once thinking that he was to become a lawyer, it is in the field of poetry that the world has come to know and revere Mervyn Morris.

Mervyn Morris is one of the most resourceful and technically brilliant of Caribbean poets. He has published six volumes of poetry, and has edited the works of many other Caribbean writers. In one of his books of poems “The Pond” will be found a moving poem on William Boland – a crippled Munro teacher who taught English and art from his room which opened unto the art room. One of Morris’ collections of poems is “On Holy Week,” one of his essays “Is English We Speaking.” In 2006 Carcanet Press published his “I been there, sort of: New and Selected Poems”. He also had the distinction of editing the great Louise Bennett-Coverley’s “Selected Poems,” when it was decided that her poems would be used in schools. Some of his best known poems are “Little Boy Crying,” “One Two,” and “Home.” And would-be writers; beware – he is a literary critic. Among his recurrent concerns are sexuality, the delicacy of relationships, and the nature of independent thought and feeling.

He has written thirty articles in books, over fifty random articles, including a publication is in collaboration with Leonie Forbes – a book about her life in theatre and broadcasting and her life in general. The title is “Leonie: Her Autobiography.” With Jimmy Carnegie, another publication is “Lunchtime Medley,” which is an anthology on West Indies Cricket. It draws on the offerings of CLR James, Lloyd Best, Samuel Selvon, Paul Keanes Douglas, and many others.

He was the recipient of eleven major awards before being named Poet Laureate, including the CPTC Cultural Medal of Honour conferred in 2012. He was awarded the Institute of Jamaica Musgrave Silver Medal for Poetry in 1976, and the Una Marson Award for Literature in 1997. In 2006 The Government of Jamaica conferred on him the Order of Merit (OM), the fourth highest national honour. He used the opportunity of the occasion of his receiving the OM to call on the Government – which indeed is all of us – to shine the national spotlight on other individuals who have excelled in the arts, especially in the fields of literature and culture.

Professor Mervyn Morris was inducted for his service to Munro as an athlete, poet, and later a teacher, but more so for his national service as a brilliant poet and professor.

Professor the Hon. Owen St. Clair Morgan OJ

In 1950, Owen St. Clair Morgan won a scholarship offered by the Munro and Dickenson Trust, and entered Munro. His mother insisted that he always be in the first five in his form, while encouraging participation in games and in extracurricular activities, and he complied for the most part. He made the school athletic team, cricket team, the football team as goalie, the hockey team, and played a fair game of tennis – both table and lawn. He played the organ for morning chapel from time to time, and he was Head Perfect in 1956, Munro’s centennial year, and had much to do with organization of the celebration under the guidance of the late T.M. Whitmarsh-Knight.

After studying and working abroad in Ireland, he returned to Jamaica in 1970 as Consultant Physician at the University Hospital of the West Indies, by 1980 Consultant Neurologist, and by 1984, Professor of Medicine UWI – the first Jamaican to be so honoured. Since 1985 he has been Adjunct Professor at the University of Miami. He was appointed Professor of Neurology the UWI and in 1999 became Dean of The Faculty of Medical Sciences.

His research work gained him awards locally, and appointments to numerous committees, which enhanced student access to better lectureship, computer assisted learning, and financial assistance. Research also put him in touch with the international community in the United States, Canada, Tanzania, South Africa, Ireland, Scotland, England, France, and Saudi Arabia, to name a few. He helped many students in myriad ways at Mona, and established links with universities aboard so that courses not offered in Jamaica could be obtained there.

His publications include 103 papers, 36 of which are published in the West Indian Medical Journal.

It is a curious commentary on success in Medical pursuits that one goes up the ladder from Mister to Bachelor to Master to Doctor to Post Doctor then back to Mister, then just a plain Fellow and then back to Master. Owen Morgan has achieved them all. He is a Master of the American College of Physicians, and there are less than 300 such Masters in the world, of which he is the only one in the Caribbean. He is a member of the Association of Minority Physicians in the US, and he is a visiting professor to Canada, the US, and Tanzania. As a member of the Dwight Eisenhower Foundation’s People-to-people Programme, he helped create understanding between the Jamaican and South African medical communities. From the UWI, he received the Pelican and the Vice Chancellors awards for Excellence.

As Chairman of the Munro and Dickenson Trust, succeeding J.O. “Jackie” Minott, he resisted the temptation to sell Munro property to augment the meagre Trust funds. Noting the poor performance of students in English, he proposed and saw to the implementation of a scheme whereby teachers in feeder primary schools around Munro could improve their teaching of English at Bethlehem Teachers’ Training College. He also sat on the Munro College Board of Governors.

Professor Morgan was inducted for his dedicated service to Munro College and his stellar achievements in the field of medicine and medical research and education.

Robert Hugh Munro

The late Robert Hugh Munro, an unmarried “gentleman of colour,” lived and worked in 18th century Jamaica.

He owned a sugar plantation, was active in the breeding and trading of horses, and also the chipping and sale of logwood. He also owned a livery business, the main clients of which were lawyers transported between St. Elizabeth and Savanna-La-Mar.

He was the recipient of a three hundred acre patent of land in St. Elizabeth in 1765, and other patents in Clarendon, and when he died in 1797, his will of 21st January 1797, and codicil of 23rd May 1797, bequeathed the residue of his personal and real estate in trust to his nephew, Caleb Dickenson, and the Churchwardens of St. Elizabeth and their successors. His instruction was to create an endowment for a school to be erected and maintained, in the same parish, for the education of as many poor children as the funds might be sufficient to provide for and maintain.

He was buried at Leith Hall in the Parish of St. Thomas, and his remains were later re-interred in the chapel at Munro College in September 1939

Robert Hugh Munro was posthumously inducted as one of our two founders, for his vision and generosity to instigate what has become Munro College.

Dr. Caleb Dickenson

The late Caleb Dickenson, a “gentleman of colour,” as was his uncle Robert Hugh Munro, was sent to be educated in Catterick, Yorkshire, and studied medicine. He returned to practice in St. Andrew and St. Thomas, and spent the evening of his years at his Knockpatrick estate in south Manchester, which he had inherited from his uncle Robert Hugh Munro. He died on 21st January 1821, and was buried there, earning an obituary in the Royal Gazette which prophetically ends: “…..his benevolence and charity have been the highest ornaments of his character, as they will remain the most lasting of his name.”

In 1931, his remains were brought from Knockpatrick to Munro, where they lie under the floor of the chapel.

Caleb Dickenson was the recipient of a bequest of his late uncle, Robert Hugh Munro, who willed his real and personal estate to Dickenson and the Churchwardens of St. Elizabeth to establish a school for the poor children of the parish. Dickenson, who became even wealthier than Munro, enlarged the funds, and left by his will of 1821 funds to establish the school and to also support the aged poor of St. Elizabeth. At the time of his death, his legacy included cash of ˆ£26,000 in England, majority shares in a fine ship, Knockpatrick plantation in Manchester, and the Grosmond, Maggotty Pen, and Middlesex Pen estates in St. Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, as had been the case with his uncle’s estate, his wishes were not carried out for some time, and records indicate that no less than the then Governor of Jamaica, the Attorney General, and the Duke of Manchester, all had a dip into the money destined for Munro College and Hampton, before it was finally rescued in 1855.

Through his ancestor Francis Dickenson, who was in the British raiding party which captured Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, Caleb colourfully connects Munro College to the history of Jamaica as a British colony, the history of St. Elizabeth, and to our fellow St. Elizabeth-born brand, Appleton rum.

Dickenson was posthumously inducted for his philanthropy and dedication in carrying out his uncles wishes to create what became Munro College.

2014

Alfred M.W. Sangster OJ, CD, JP, BSc, PhD. FJIM

Alfred Sangster was born in St. Elizabeth on July 24, 1929, son of Peter Watt Sangster, a farmer, politician, and Munro & Dickenson Trustee, who was a hero for his upcoming nephew Donald, who became Prime Minister of Jamaica. Alfred’s mother, Iris M.L. Maxwell Sangster, was the daughter of a Scottish missionary who established many churches in St Elizabeth.

Alfred attended Munro College from 1940 to 1947. He achieved good scholastic and sporting accomplishments, was House Captain of Calder House and Deputy Head Boy, and was a scout as a junior and cadet as a senior. Although he has represented Jamaica in hockey, he was perhaps more remembered for tennis and track and field. Along with fellow inductee Hugh Hart, he was on the tennis team that won the Alexander Cup in 1947, and on the athletic teams of 1945, captained by inductee Lindy Delapenha, and of 1947, both of which won Boys Champs for Munro College. In cricket, he famously made a century against the Munro Old Boys. He earned his school colours in athletics, cricket, hockey and tennis.

Going on to study science at Queens University in Belfast, Ireland, he gained a 1st class honours BSc in Chemistry, a blue in athletics, and was an executive in the Varsity Bible Union. He came back to Jamaica and was assistant Lecturer in Chemistry, then Senior Lecturer and Supervisor of Research Projects between 1952 and 1970 at the University of the West Indies. Meanwhile, in 1958, he obtained his PhD in organic chemistry.

His career at what was first CAST and later University of Technology went from Vice-Dean of Evening Students to President of UTECH, where for a while his name became synonymous with the institution.

He has been President of the Inter-collegiate Sports Association and a Member of Carreras Sports Foundation. Out of this interest in sports, he espoused the principle of local training of athletes along with colleague Dennis Johnson, and this has seen the emergence of world-class local coaches and Jamaican athletes prosper, excel, and dominate as never before.

His publications include numerous scientific papers, television commentaries, and a book, “Energy and our World.” His other interests are photography, swimming, and scanning the latest developments in science and technology.

He was a founding father and chairman of Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections, (CAFFE) and under its monitoring, the freeness and fairness at polling stations in Jamaica have improved greatly in the last five general elections. For this initiative he received the Gleaner’s Special Award in 1999.

He has received the Institute of Jamaica Musgrave Gold Medal and the Munro & Dickenson Trust Award for Excellence. He received the Order of Jamaica (CD) in 1982, and the Order of Jamaica (OJ) in 1995. Fittingly, in 1996, the UTECH Auditorium was named the Alfred Sangster Auditorium.

The Hon. Alfred Sangster, OJ, was inducted for his services in the fields of education, technology, sports, and civic activism.

HON. HUGH CECIL EDMUND HART OJ

Hugh Hart entered Munro College in 1940, was placed in Coke House, and installed in the Baby Dorm under the care of Miss Lucy. Munro by then was a Hart family tradition, as Hugh was preceded by his father, uncle, and grandfather before him, and started Munro just one year ahead of his cousin and fellow inductee Tony, who was also following his father Allan’s footsteps.

Hugh made good use of Munro in both academics and sports. In 1945 he got a Grade II in Senior Cambridge examinations, with a distinction in English Literature, and in the Higher Schools Certificate examinations in 1947, he got distinctions for History, English, Latin, and Geography.

He represented Munro and gained school colours in football, cricket, hockey, tennis, rifle shooting and athletics. Like his father Clinton before him, who won in 1919, he was an Olivier Shield winner in 1945, and played on that team with fellow inductee “Lindy” Delapenha. Again as Delapenha’s teammate, he helped Munro win Boys Champs in 1945, and did so again in 1947 with a team that included fellow inductee Alfred Sangster. Also in 1947, he teamed up with Sangster again to bring home the Alexander Cup in tennis.

Hugh Hart attended The Queens College, Oxford, and there obtained his Masters in Law while representing the college in cricket, hockey, and tennis. He was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn, England, in 1953, and admitted as a solicitor in Jamaica in 1956.

A founding partner of the Law firm Hart Muirhead Fatta, he was named one of the leading commercial lawyers in Jamaica by the renowned Chambers Global List, and by the International Financial Law Review. His expertise is in commercial law, corporate finance, and conveyancing, which enables him to develop his passion for innovative residential and commercial real estate development. He has been a director of property development companies in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands for over thirty years.

He is director and former Chairman of Jamaica Flour Mills limited, and was also Chairman of the Jamaica Bauxite Institute, Carreras Group Limited, the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, and the Bauxite & Alumina Trading Company Limited. He has served on various other Boards in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

He served as Senator in the Jamaican Parliament from 1980 to 1993. He was Minister of Mining and Energy from 1983-1989, and also Minister of Tourism from 1984-1989.

Along with then Prime Minister and his brother in law, Edward Seaga, aided by technocrats like Dr. Carlton Davis, it was Hugh Hart as Mining Minister introduced a series of unprecedented measures to keep the industry, and by extension, the economy, alive, after the alumna market crashed and three Jamaican bauxite companies closed down almost all at once.

A delegation went to the oval office of then US President Ronald Reagan, and in the middle of a soft market, the US General Service Administration (GSA), was persuaded to buy 3.6 million tonnes of Jamaican bauxite for the US strategic stockpile. This moved annual local production to 6.5 million tonnes after it had crashed to a low of 2.9 million tonnes in 1985. GSA was also talked into bartering American grain for a further 2 million tonnes of Jamaican bauxite, and having gotten the hang of international bartering, Hart then bartered bauxite with the Soviet Union for an avalanche of Soviet-made Lada motor cars, which lasted well into the 90’s. The Alcoa plant had been closed with only 20 days’ notice, and the decision was also taken to have the government take over the plant on lease and operate it themselves. Happy to have their jobs saved, the workers increased efficiency and moved production from 40 to 60 thousand tonnes per month, and Hart persuaded global commodity trader Marc Rich to purchase the entire output of the plant for two consecutive years.

After all that stress, the high-stakes world of international corporate law must seem a breeze, and so there Hugh Hart has continued to excel.

The Hon. Hugh Cecil Edmund Hart, OJ, was inducted for his exploits as a schoolboy athlete and scholar, and his stellar service to the bauxite industry, Jamaican politics, and to the legal profession.

Cecil Lloyd “C Lloyd” Allen

The late “C Lloyd” Allen, son of C. Lloyd “Sugar” Allen and Mrs. Allen, entered Munro in January 1957, and such was his precociousness that he remains the only schoolboy who registered as a member of the old boys association while still in fifth form. This was truly a sign of things to come, as he indeed became the quintessential old boy.

As a student, he plunged himself into the life of Munro College, and took part in most sports, with an emphasis on tennis. The others at which he did well were hockey, cricket, and rifle shooting. The academics, as such, did not receive priority attention, but his inherent penchant for facts and his curiosity and retention skills made him a walking encyclopaedia, which he was always happy to demonstrate. His “marketplace knowledge” was later to serve him well in the commercial world.

After school, his sharp dressing and smooth talking made him a natural fit for sales and marketing, and his contribution to Munro from his perch in the corporate world has been tremendous. He became head of Insport, and through the Sports Development Commission, Munro had its two existing tennis courts resuscitated, and an additional court built. Along with other old boys – notably Laurie Sharp, Trevor Armstrong, Brando Hayden, and Dr. Paul Auden – they were able to encourage and support the track and field team, bringing them to the level of constantly being in the first eight and on one occasion fifth at Boys Champs.

He was on the School Board of the 1990’s with Sharp as Chairman, and was a key figure in a number of projects. One was the completion of the Richard B. Roper Auditorium in an effort that spanned 1992 to 2000 when it was opened by Sir Alistair McIntyre. Another was a massive building programme that provided the administration building, new labs and classrooms, and general improvement of existing buildings. A third was the windmill – the brainchild of Paul Stockhausen – but a project in which Allen proved to be indispensable both in construction and repair, utilizing his clout with the Wigton wind farm project.

C. Lloyd loved tennis, and in fact continued playing to the very end. After excelling at the sport at Munro, he went on to represent Jamaica at the Brandon Trophy level, and was also later a non-playing captain for the Davis Cup team. When age eventually relegated him to play at the Masters level, he took his love of the sport into administration. He was president of the Jamaica Lawn Tennis Association for several years, and did a lot for the recognition of the sport in Jamaica. In 1978, he was instrumental in bringing the WCT Challenge Cup, part of the World Championship Tennis Circuit, to Montego Bay Jamaica, where Ilie Nastase defeated Peter Fleming in the final.

Thankfully, he never did boxing at Munro, though he was a noted verbal pugilist, but his contribution to actual boxing in Jamaica was just as legendary. He was twice president of the Jamaica Boxing Board of Control and major critic of all presidents after him. The interest in boxing was influenced by colleague John Martinez while Allen worked at Desnoes & Geddes, and he was active in the promotion of Jamaica’s own Commonwealth lightweight champion, Bunny Grant, who was the first Jamaican boxer to fight for a world title on home soil. In perhaps his greatest coup, he was also involved with promoter Lucien Chen in helping the Jamaican government outbid New York’s Madison Square Garden to host one-third of boxing’s most famous trilogy at the National Stadium. After the Thriller in Manila where Frazier defeated Ali, and before Ali’s legendary comeback in Zaire’s Rumble in the Jungle, Don King, Foreman, and Frazier were brought to Jamaica for the Sunshine Showdown in January 1973, where Foreman dramatically downed Frazier.

C. Lloyd was also active in politics as a member of the Jamaica Labour Party, but yet one of the best tributes read at his funeral was sent from the opposing side, from no less than former prime minister the Most Hon. P.J. Patterson, which said:

“C. Lloyd Allen was a man of firm convictions – never hesitant to express his views, even loudly at times. He could be contentious, but devoid of rancour. He will forever be remembered for his sharp mind and dashing style, his biting wit and infectious sense of humour. For Munro which he so dearly loved, he was prepared to give his all. For his country, he was always ready to devote his time and energy in the building of a strong and better Jamaica. The flame C. Lloyd worked to keep alight may flicker but must never die.”

C. Lloyd Allen died in 2014, and in that year was posthumously inducted for his larger-than-life personality, his tireless work for Munro, and his national contributions to tennis and boxing.

Rev. William Simms MA, 1875-1883.

The late Mr. William Simms arrived in 1875 from England where he had been educated at Leeds Grammar School and Christ’s College, Cambridge, and had his teaching and administrative experience at Giggleswick School, Doncaster Grammar School, and at Clapham School, before coming to Jamaica with his wife Edith and three children. In Jamaica they flourished further and produced six more children for a grand total of nine. His salary was ˆ£286 a year up from his predecessor’s salary of ˆ£160. His assistant, Mr. J. Cork was paid ˆ£90 a year.

Rev. Williams Simms was ordained at Black River Parish Church.

In 1881, his sister came to visit him, and the visit became permanent. She married Mr. J.V. Calder, who later succeeded Hon. W.H. Coke as Chairman of the Trustees. Their children KW, OV, Travers, NT and CC Calder all attended Potsdam. A grandson of Rev. Simms also attended Munro in the 1950’s.

Enrolment when Mr. Simms arrived was 25. Simms immediately expanded the curriculum to include the classics, like English Literature, Latin and Greek. The results in external examinations (Cambridge Junior and Senior) were so good that the Trustees used the results in an advertisement of Potsdam. In July 1876 he wrote home, describing what was happening at Potsdam. The following is a verbatim extract from that letter.

“We have already six new boys coming next half and only two are leaving, so that we shall be pretty full. I hear besides of some others as likely to come. I think the boys like us and are happy. As for Edith, they worship her. It is a satisfactory sort of thing that a man who sent me one son at Easter (to see what the place was like?) is now sending two more. The Trustees are going to enlarge the place to hold more boarders. They are beginning the work tomorrow and I don’t at all despair of getting a good sized school together in time … To my mind the climate on these hills is perfection.”

It was he who presided over a period of transition which saved the school from premature extinction by ensuring its financial viability, and drafted the early model for Munro College as we know it today. By the time Rev. Simms left in 1883, student numbers had increased to 50 (25 free and 25 paying) and the school was left on a sustainable growth path with an enviable reputation.

Rev. Simms went on to more success at Jamaica College, from where we were later to procure Richard Roper, and where we have since deployed Ruel Reid. He is remembered as one of their great headmasters.

The Hon. Albert Edward Harrison, Potsdam School Old Boy, headmaster of Potsdam from 1907-1917, and of the renamed Munro College from 1917-1937, gained his BA while an assistant master at Jamaica College, where Rev Simms had established the first institution granting degrees in Jamaica.

The Rev. William Simms was posthumously inducted for his services to Jamaican education in general, to Munro College in particular, and for his status as Munro’s first great headmaster.

Hon. William A. McConnell O.J., C.D. J.P. F.C.A.

William A. “Billy” McConnell entered Munro College in the Easter Term of 1957 in Baby Dorm, under the care of Miss Lucy.

His Munro years were typified more by interest in sport than in academics, but on leaving Munro, he went to Dean Close School in the UK and then unto McGill University, Montreal, Canada, where he studied accounting.

His accounting career began at Price Waterhouse in Montreal, Canada, and then TouchÃ&Copy; Ross Thorburn in Kingston, Jamaica. His competence which intensified with his experience took him to many chairmanships and directorships in corporate Jamaica.

J. Wray & Nephew Ltd and Appleton Rum boast no small amount of historical linkages to Munro College, and Billy McConnell was to add to that history by joining the company as Financial Accountant in 1973. His rise to the top was quick, and in 1977 he became the iconic and visionary Managing Director of the J. Wray & Nephew Group of Companies. In 1990 he was made Managing Director of the parent company of J. Wray & Nephew, Lascelles De Mercado & Co. Ltd, and served until 2011. He has for over twenty years been either Vice President or Honorary Secretary of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ), and has about fifteen directorships under his belt.

He has served as Chairman of Globe Insurance Company of the West Indies, Chairman of Scotia Investment Jamaica Ltd., Chairman of the Sugar Manufacturing Corporation of Jamaica Ltd. and Chairman of St. Elizabeth Holdings Ltd. He has served as Chairman of Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, Petrojam Ltd, and Chairman of Scotia Group Jamaica Ltd.

In 1996 he was awarded the Order of Distinction, (CD) for outstanding services in the development of commerce and export, in 2005 he was inducted into the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica Hall of Fame, and in 2006 he was conferred with the Order of Jamaica (OJ) for distinguished leadership in Business and the Export Industry.

He was a co-founder of Tony Thwaites Wing at the University Hospital of the West Indies, underlining his faith in Jamaican doctors and in Jamaica itself.

He has never even thought of leaving Jamaica, and although in formal retirement, Billy McConnell continues to maintain chairmanships and directorships in corporate Jamaica and continues to work for the growth of Jamaican exports, to benefit the Jamaican economy.

Not one to rest on his laurels, his latest venture is IronRock Insurance.

The Hon. William A. “Billy” McConnell, OJ, was inducted for his status as an icon in Jamaican business.

2015

Ambassador the Hon. Burchell A. Whiteman, OJ

Son of Edgar James Whiteman, May Pen Elementary School Head-teacher, and Mrs. Merab Whiteman, housewife and intensive social worker; Burchell Anthony Whiteman attended Munro College from January 1949 to 1955 on a Government scholarship. In those pre-Common-Entrance days, there were 14 of them for the entire island, one for each parish, which means he was the top student for Clarendon.

He did so well in lower third (now 1st form), that he was promoted to Lower 4th (now 3rd form) in 1950. So essentially, he skipped second form, and unlike most of us who would still be bragging about it at every possible opportunity, he remains as humble as ever.

He does not boast an impressive record as a troublemaker, and as such, his academic performance remained strong throughout his time at Munro. He got his School Certificate Grade I in 1952, Higher School Certificate in 1954, and won an Exhibition University College of the West Indies (UCWI) Scholarship in 1955. He never spent all his days buried in books, however, and found time to be active in house sports competitions, do some debating and some drama – not necessarily together – and was House Captain of Calder House. His leadership abilities also led to his appointment as Head Perfect of Munro in 1954.

While he was head prefect, the small matter of the annual party at Hampton, now called the HOP, then called the Hampton Dance, provided some controversy.

The brand new headmaster, a very young Richard Roper, with Christian zeal ablaze and somewhat skittish about sensual events involving music and dancing, insisted that the party would have to end at the indecently decent hour of 9 p.m. The boys were livid, and the prefect body threatened to revolt by boycotting an upcoming school function, a military band tattoo in which they were to play a significant role. Burchell delivered the protest himself, and gently assured the headmaster in true union fashion that he could not guarantee normality.

The novice headmaster was taken aback, and after promising to think about it, did a bit of protesting himself at what he saw as an ultimatum coming from students, and so he stuck to 9pm. Rather than risk not seeing the girls at all, they boys went along, and somewhat to their pleasant surprise, found out that Mr. Roper had given instructions to their chaperone to allow them to stay until close to 10 pm.

Whiteman won the ISSA Scholarship in 1962 and gained his first degree in English with French at the UCWI, and he gives full credit to Munro Second Master and French tutor Guy Wiehen for his prowess in French. By 1965 he gained his Master’s in Education at Birmingham University, England. From 1965 he taught at York Castle. In 1969 he was appointed Headmaster of York Castle High School in Browns Town and in 1975 became founding Principal of the newly formed Browns Town Community College. His teaching and administration already accounted for 24 years of service by that time.

Somewhere in around 1982, he applied for the post of Headmaster of Munro College, and the fact that he never got the job remains perhaps the only big mistake a certain legendary headmaster ever made, but even luminary legends are entitled to rare mistakes. Munro’s loss was the nation’s gain, and at the end of his Community College stint he entered representative politics as the PNP candidate for NW ST. Ann, successfully winning the seat in 1989 and again in 1993.

In 1989, he was made Minister of Education, Youth and Culture from 1992 to 2002, where his main contribution was in the area of academic curriculum design. In 2002 he was made Minister of Information by the P.J. Paterson-led administration, where, in addition to making even controversial issues more palatable, he commanded respect and even affection from both sides of the aisle as well as the wider public.

So what do you do with a decent politician? You make him a diplomat. So in 2007 he was appointed Jamaica’s representative to the Court of St. James’s, i.e. High Commissioner to London, where he served with distinction until 2009.

His interpersonal skills and unruffled patience are legendary, and have served him well in the convoluted world of politics and diplomacy.

The Hon. Burchell Whiteman, OJ, was inducted for his stellar services to education, politics, and diplomacy.

CUSTOS ALBERT EDWARD HARRISON, BA.

The late Albert Edward “Wagger” Harrison, third-generation Jamaican and son of J.S. Harrison, Justice of the Peace of St. Elizabeth, spent about 50 of his 68 years at Munro as student and then teacher and headmaster, and in fact, like his predecessor, he died in office.

He attended Munro College, then known as Potsdam School, where he gained Class 2 honours in Senior Cambridge examinations in 1886. Upon leaving Potsdam, he became an Assistant Master at the old York Castle School in 1890, and at Jamaica College in 1891. A former headmaster of Potsdam, Rev. William Simms, had left Potsdam in 1883 and had become Headmaster of Jamaica College, where he temporarily made Jamaica College the first degree – granting institution in Jamaica, and so Harrison gained his B.A. while teaching there.

He returned to Potsdam in 1893 as Second Master, and served in that capacity as deputy to Headmaster William Davies Pearman for 14 years until 1907, when he took over as Headmaster on the death of Pearman, with an annual salary of 300 pounds. He was Pearman’s former student, and had also become his son-in-law when he married his daughter May Pearman.

Harrison was not the schools’ first great headmaster, but was perhaps its first legendary one.

The 125th Anniversary Munronian states that “though one cannot approve of all the methods used to accomplish the goals, one cannot deny that a great institution was developed.” It states further that “he is undoubtedly one of the prime makers of the school.”

The “methods we might not approve of” is undoubtedly a reference to his extremely liberal use of harsh corporal punishment, not with the cane, but with the supple jack. The supple jack, once a popular instrument for flogging convicted prisoners, was a climbing vine procured from Pearman Bush by an unlucky student, on whom it was tried and tested before being commissioned into active and continuous service. Legend has it that he sometimes administered canings publicly, on what are now the tennis courts, somewhat in the manner of medieval public executions. Some critics therefore described him as barbaric and even sadistic, and the late eminent journalist Morris Cargill, who kept running away from Munro to escape Harrison and the supple jack, describes himself as an advocate of corporal punishment for boys, but only if it is limited to standard canings, and not the severe floggings that Harrison was reputed to deliver.

He was widely respected for his efficient administrative and exceptional teaching abilities, but his stern, aloof, and somewhat larger-than-life personality also meant that he was feared, and his nickname “Wagger” was a corruption of “ogre,” which is how the smaller boys saw him. As his own son, Geoffrey Harrison, wrote about him in 1981, “…as headmaster he bestrode the Munro community like a colossus. He had a strong personality, great energy, a quick temper, and a loud voice. When he shouted at a lazy or sullen boy in one classroom, the boys in even distant classrooms heard and shivered in our shoes…”

Paradoxically, despite his famous temper, booming voice, and propensity for public floggings, he was also still described by many of his peers and indeed students as warm, kind, loveable, even, and possessing a good sense of humour, as well as being the consummate gentleman with ladies. Old boy A.D. Soutar wrote, “…again and again his reaction in certain instances was opposite to what we had come to expect from him. It was puzzling too to observe how genial and even jovial a host he was in relations with visitors…after I left school I found him most charming and friendly.”

Building extensively on the foundation laid by the school’s founders and the headmasters before him, it was Harrison who truly created the Munro brand, and Munro College – quite literally – became Munro College under his watch.

Potsdam School was named after a German city, and the name was changed ten years into Harrison’s tenure in 1917, during World War One (then called the Great War), as Potsdam Palace was central to the German war administration. At around the same time, the school colours were changed to blue and gold from red and black, which were declared too “piratical.”

Several other landmark events, as well as landmarks, came in his tenure. What was then called Mount Grace, and later became the staff quarters for single teachers, was originally built for him and his wife in 1906 when he was still second master. On June 29, 1910, he was one of six headmasters who organized the very first Inter-Schools Championships Sports at Sabina Park in Kingston. In 1918 he expanded the Coke Farquharson building into what became the reading room, new dormitory, and housemaster’s office and quarters. He was a long-time Justice of the Peace, and in 1920, became the first Munro headmaster to be appointed Custos of the parish, supervising all the other Justices in the parish. In 1925 he built the present dining room, the headmaster’s office and study was constructed under his watch in 1929, as was the Pearman baby dorm, built in 1933. One of Munro’s greatest unsolved mysteries also happened on his watch. In 1932, a teacher named Mr. McDonald disappeared from his quarters in Coke Farquharson one night without a trace.

Although he stressed the value of academics over sports, Munro still became a sporting power under his leadership, and won 33 major sports trophies in his 30-year stint as headmaster: 13 Olivier Shields for football, 4 Athletics Cups, 3 Mordecai Cups for boxing, 9 Perkins Shields for under-19 rifle shooting, and four DeCarteret Shields for under-14 rifle shooting. Those years also produced 41 academic scholarships, including 15 Jamaica Scholarships and 13 Rhodes Scholarships, and the school population grew from 85 to 130 during his administration.

His forte as a teacher was undoubtedly mathematics. One year in the Senior Cambridge Examinations, his students took first, second, third, and fifth places in Maths, not in Jamaica, not in the West Indies, but in the world! He taught Maths with great skill and unyielding ruthlessness, and if you were one of the few students slow to get it, then any stubbornness to receive it through the ears was assisted by generous applications of the supple jack at the other end.

Harrison’s motto was “Possunt quia posse videntur,” “they can because they think they can.” Academic and ancillary staff on campus as well as students caught that spirit, and generally made the motto their own.

He found time to for a few activities outside Munro College, and in addition to his duties as Custos of the parish, raised horses and mules, many of which were exported to Panama to help build the canal.

On St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1937, Albert Harrison died unexpectedly of a ruptured appendix in the Black River Hospital. He is buried in the churchyard of the Black River Parish Church.

Custos Albert Edward Harrison was posthumously inducted for his stellar service to Munro College as its first legendary headmaster.

Dr. John A. Ewen, Ph.D.

John Ewen (centre) receives the 2001 American National Medal of Technology from then US President George W. Bush in 2002.

John Alexander Ewen was born into a Munro family, as his father and three uncles, as well as his older brother, attended Munro before him, and his father taught mathematics at Munro for a short while.

He was also born into a family of leading Jamaican hoteliers, as his parents owned and operated the landmark Casa Blanca hotel in Montego Bay, which in turn had been inherited from his paternal grandparents, Rupert Mortimer Ewen and May Belle Amy Ewen.

He was shipped off to Munro College at nine years old in 1954 to join his late older brother, it did not go very well. Unlike the quieter William, who went on to become a leading accountant and head of finance for the Pan-Jamaican Group of Companies, he excelled in mischief a bit more than in sports or academics.

The future leading chemist did indeed encounter the future great chemistry teacher, but in those days, one started chemistry in 4th form, and so he had only two years with Steven Harle, who then was a new young teacher, not yet at the peak of his powers. “Staggy” still managed to have an influence, though, as young Ewen got interested in chemistry then, and found what Mr. Harle taught him to be useful for years afterwards.

He did ok at chemistry and maths, liked cross-country running, and dabbled in cricket and hockey, but his performance overall was no better than average, and so he left Munro after 5 years and ended up finishing high school in a place even colder than Munro, Stanstead College in Quebec, Canada. He continued his interest in chemistry there, along with picking up a bit of French, and graduated in 1963.

He came back to Jamaica and to the University of the West Indies, and there, the interest in chemistry sparked at Munro became a passion, and he finally started to do well in school. He was influenced by Professor Gerald Lalor, who impressed upon him the importance of research to society, and inspired him to develop a lifelong fascination for all aspects of chemistry. He graduated with first class honours in chemistry in 1972, and years later, when he received a certain prestigious award, Professor Lalor was the first person he contacted.

In 1979, he received his doctorate in inorganic chemistry from Tulane University in New Orleans.

His first job was at Exxon Mobile Chemical Company, where he conducted research on the synthesis of plastics and pioneered the study of metallocenes. Metallocenes are a group of catalysts, and in layman terms, as the name suggests, are used to produce plastics with characteristics of metal in them. The process resembles the way nature incorporates traces of metals in organic molecules, as with iron in the haemoglobin of red blood cells, and magnesium in the chlorophyll of green plants.

John Ewen never invented metallocenes, any more than he invented plastic, but he found ways to make them both better and stronger and to produce them more efficiently. What he did invent, are the catalysts that enabled metals to be incorporated in polyethylene plastics, the light thin plastics usually used in packaging, as well as the denser polypropylene plastics, used in anything from automotive components to stationary and furniture.

So if you have ever used a medical IV bag or played golf, you have benefitted from the work of John Ewen, and whenever you go to the supermarket and buy vegetables or meat covered in transparent plastic wrap, or when you buy a CD or DVD, you are seeing and touching the work of John Ewen. He has also developed an oxygen-permeable bag that allows salads to remain fresh without refrigeration, so they can be stored on the shelf longer. His work, which has revitalized and revolutionized the entire global industry and made it more lucrative, provides the means to better control and manipulate the properties of plastics, and has allowed the manufacturing of plastics that are heatproof, waterproof, tear-resistant, transparent, and durable.

Exxon and Fina, where he also worked, together own over a hundred patents on metallocenes, many of which are based on his work, and he independently owns over 49 patents in his own name, and has authored 26 scientific publications. From 1991 to 2004 he was President of Catalyst Research Corporation, Houston, Texas, and since retirement has worked as a consultant. His new baby is an even more advanced group of catalysts, called heterocines.

His now second ex-wife once painted a portrait of him as medieval chemist, and he does describe himself as more alchemist than chemist, saying, “…I’d like to take lead and turn it into gold, but no one can do that. So I take cheap raw materials – hydrocarbons – and make plastics out of them.”

He received the Exxon Chemical outstanding Patent award in 1996, and in 2004, he was awarded the honorary Doctor of Science from the University of the West Indies and also received the Munro and Dickenson Trust Award of Excellence.

In 2002, at 57, he was a guest of United States President George W. Bush at the White House, where he was awarded the American National Medal of Technology, which is the highest possible award in that field, and comparable to a Nobel Prize in chemistry, for which he was actually nominated in 1993. The citation credits him for his discoveries and inventions in the field of metallocine catalysts, which revolutionized and spurred the growth of the entire industry and enhanced American leadership in the field.

Dr. John A. Ewen, alchemist, catalyst chemist, industrial research chemist and inventor, was inducted for his pioneering work in the field of global chemistry.

Ronald George Sturdy, M.A.

The late Ronald George Sturdy attended Munro College from 1925 to 1934, where he is remembered mostly as an all-round star athlete, making his name as one to watch as early as 13 years old.

Sturdy played first-11 senior football from age 15 in 1932, and in his first season was the second highest goal-scorer, with nine goals from his inside right position. His team, known as The Invincibles, which included one of the many Munro McConnells, won the Olivier Shield that year, and won again for two more years in a row. He was captain of his Perkins Shield-winning rifle shooting team, a skill which would soon serve him well; he was very good at tennis and golf, and at the 1934 edition of Boys Champs, where Munro won for the third of its eight times, Sturdy was the pole vault champion. It should be noted that in those days, the pole vault was done with bamboo.

He balanced books and sports very well, so much so that he was awarded the Rhodes scholarship to Oxford in 1936, where by 1939 he had gained his Masters from the School of Jurisprudence. At Oxford, his sporting exploits continued, and in addition to dabbling in first-class cricket, he attained the rare distinction of being awarded the Double Blue decoration for tennis and football.

The war interrupted his studies in late 1939, and he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves and became sub-lieutenant on a minesweeper that took part in the evacuation of British and Allied troops at the French seaport of Dunkirk, after the German invasion of Northern France.

In July 1940, local telegraph wires buzzed with the news that Jamaica’s first decoration of the war had been awarded to none other than Munro’s Ron Sturdy. He was awarded the French Cross of War (Croix de Guerre), the highest French decoration for bravery, for conspicuous bravery and heroic conduct in the Allied assault on Narvik in Norway and the evacuation of French troops.

He went on to see active service in the Mediterranean and the Far East before being allowed to return to civilian life and his studies, and he was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn in 1947. He returned to Jamaica in 1948 with his new wife, a month-old daughter and ten-year-old stepdaughter, and was immediately admitted to practice law in Jamaica, with chambers at 4 Duke Street in Kingston.

Having survived one world war, Sturdy was in no mood for much more conflict, and quickly opted out of the courtroom drama of being an advocate, shrewdly turning instead to the quieter and much more lucrative life of corporate law. In April, 1951, therefore, he applied to have his name removed from the list of barristers, and as a solicitor, became a partner in the already prestigious law firm of Livingston, Alexander and Levy, where he confined himself strictly to conveyancing.

He still found time for sports, and in addition to being an avid golfer, frequently appeared on the local tennis circuit in the early fifties. His fellow inductee and fellow Rhodes Scholar, national poet laureate Professor Mervyn Morris, who, like Sturdy, was decorated with Blue for tennis at Oxford, can attest to his formidable backhand volley. Records show that he played for Jamaica in the 1950 Caribbean Tennis Championships, and won a local mixed doubles championship in 1952.

Sturdy also served for several years as a member of the local Rhodes scholarship selection committee, and as a director of several companies.

Ronald George Sturdy was posthumously inducted for his enviable record as a schoolboy athlete, scholar, war hero, and prominent attorney.

Major General Robert James Neish, C.D., A.F.C., A.D.C., J.P.

Robert James Neish attended St. Andrew Preparatory School then Munro and Jamaica Colleges.

His stay at Munro from 1949 to 1950 was brief, but intensely character – forming, and enough to provide him with a firm foundation. His memories of Munro include Headmaster Ward’s discipline, Ms. Lucy’s baby dormitory, Mr. Dunleavy’s cross- country runs, cold showers, Laddie who made stilts, kites, and gigs and sold them to the boys, his non- brilliant academic performances, and his being one of those who had to pump the pipe organ while Mr. Wiehen played, and also William Boland – a crippled master who gave him a caning which landed mostly on the back of his knees instead of on the proper place.

Family economic constraints forced him to have to leave the first choice of Munro and its boarding fees in favour of next-best option Jamaica College, as a day boy.

His parents wanted him to be an engineer, but his interest in rifle shooting – which begun at Munro – and in the cadet corps (which he was too young to join at Munro), led him to join the cadets at JC and to desire a career in the army. His father told him that Jamaica did not have a real army, and if he was really interested he would have to join the British army like his father had. Robert persisted and did it his way, and then some.

Straight out of school, he plunged into what he would help make a real army – Jamaica Local Forces, West India Regiment, which soon became the first battalion, Jamaica Regiment. He attended the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst; the Warminster School of Infantry; and the British army Staff College at Camberley.

He spent 15 years in the JDF Air Wing, from 1958 to 1973, where he was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1968 for the rescue of a British soldier who had fallen down a steep and deep incline at Blue Mountain Peak. The soldier’s back was injured, and a tricky helicopter operation managed by Robert Neish saved his life.

In June, 1976, Peruvian Ambassador to Jamaica Fernando Rodriguez Oliva was stabbed to death after surprising burglars in his unguarded Kingston home. Then Colonel Neish had the job of escorting the body to Lima, Peru, and attending the funeral on behalf of the Jamaican Government. He bought the only English-speaking newspaper he saw, the Miami Herald, where he found out that Jamaica was under a state of emergency. When he returned to Jamaica, he found himself named commandant of the detention centre at Up Park Camp. He ran it with compassion and non-partisan treatment, and also brought in the services of JAMAL to teach any illiterate inmates to read. To this day former detainees greet him with respect.

He was appointed Chief of Staff in 1979, at the rank of Brigadier, and promoted in rank to Major General in 1982.

Internationally, it was the strange time of the not-so-cold war, which added fuel to local political tensions, and after becoming Chief of Staff, he was immediately plunged into a “baptism of fire” in the prolonged and heated run up to the 1980 election. His watchwords of “professionalism, loyalty, military discipline and impartiality” were crucial to his leadership of the army during that difficult period.

He was barely out of that fire when “Operation Fury,” the US-led invasion of Grenada, arrived in October 1983, after the arrest and murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. An Air Jamaica plane was commandeered to take 120 JDF men to Barbados, from where an American army plane transported them to Grenada. Their performance and professionalism positively surprised the Americans, who were content to pull out after 6 months and leave 300 JDF soldiers in place to keep the peace.

He served as Chief of Staff for 11 years until retirement in 1990, after 32 year of total service, making him the longest serving army Chief of Staff in Independent Jamaica.

After leading the Mona Rehabilitation Foundation for eight years between 1996 and 2004, Robert Neish led the Digicel Foundation as Executive Director for over seven years, and has now been promoted to the role of Executive Vice Chairman. In addition to his continued philanthropic work there, he’s also been involved in leadership positions at different times in several other social causes. To name a few: Chairman, Jamaica Legion; Vice President, Jamaica Paralympic Association; member of the PSOJ Standing Committee on National Security, Board Member of Crime Stop, member of the Central Committee of Jamaica Red Cross and St. John’s Council for Jamaica, and Vice President of Jamaica Scout Council. He is a Past President of the Rotary Club of Kingston, and is currently President of the Royal Air Forces Association, Jamaica Branch.

From as early as 1982, the government of Jamaica awarded him the Order of Distinction, Commander Class (CD) for service to his country.

An officer and a gentleman, Major General Robert James Neish, CD, was inducted for his philanthropy and his stellar service to the Jamaican military.

DR. LOUIS ASTON MARANTZ SIMPSON

After the divorce of his parents, the late Louis Aston Marantz Simpson was taken from his home in Kingston at nine years old and sent a hundred miles west to join his brother at the best school on the island, Munro College.

He was to spend eight years navigating the austerity of Munro and the fearsome headmaster “Wagga” Harrison, during which time his father remarried the proverbial evil stepmother and had another child. In 1939 at 16 came another blow. In Simpson’s words, “…when our father died and the will was read, my brother and I had been disinherited. He left us a few hundred pounds; the rest of his large estate went to our stepmother. She arranged matters so, and the day after the funeral she sent us packing. No one seemed to care what would become of us…”

He returned to Munro on his own to complete his final year, where he began to flex his literary muscles.

A group of Jamaican movers and shakers launched a weekly newspaper called the Public Opinion in 1938, which was to be instrumental in the nation’s independence movement, and helped shape and define Jamaica’s political as well as artistic thought. Right beside big adult names like Roger Mais, Edna Manley, and Archie Lindo, as well as the equally precocious H.D. Carberry, who was two years younger, Simpson, as a 16 and 17 year old schoolboy, had his poems and stories published in Public Opinion no less than nine times in 1940 before leaving Munro and Jamaica. One of his poems, fittingly named Last Stand, was published in July 1941 after he left.

With no home in Kingston to return to after Munro, when his mother wrote from New York asking him if he’d like to visit after school, he had no hesitation, and left Munro with the mail van that took him to the nearest train station, in Balaclava.

Upon reaching New York, he was somewhat surprised to learn that his maternal family was Jewish. His mother had never mentioned it, and seemingly wanted to forget her poverty as a child in Russia and as factory worker in New York. She took it a step further, telling Louis not to tell anyone he was Jamaican, but to say that he was from England. Obviously, he realized, this was to prevent anyone thinking he was coloured. Some years later, when he found out that his father’s mother had been black, a detail his father never mentioned, he had to wonder if this was why his mother had left him.

The disillusioned Simpson disapproved of his mother’s pretentious ways and ignored her advice as well as her, burying himself in his college studies at Columbia, where he was taught by legendary professor, poet, and editor, Mark Van Doren.

His studies at Columbia were violently interrupted when he was drafted to serve in World War II as a combat infantryman, first with the tank corps and then with the elite 101ST Airborne Division. He was present at the Eisenhower-led Normandy beach landing in France in 1944, and saw 21 of his comrades die under heavy shelling at Arnhem, in the Netherlands. He later writes cynically of the ambush on his platoon, “…O, Captain, show us quickly, our place on the map. But the Captain’s sickly, and taking a nap…” He was also in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, where he nearly lost his feet to frostbite in freezing conditions. In addition to other duties, he was a runner who carried messages across the battlefield, often dense with corpses, where he once saw a German soldier’s flesh melt down the side of a burning tank. He draws upon these traumatic experience in his autobiographical long poem, The Runner, in which he relates, “…There was a field the runner loathed to cross, a place of horrors. Here, on the first day, there’d been fierce charges, combats at close range, and the dead were mixed as they had fallen…” At the war’s end he returned to resume his studies at Columbia as a U.S. citizen and war hero, decorated with a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

But he also had psychic wounds that were hard to heal, and his studies were interrupted again with a mental breakdown in 1946, and he spent six months in a mental hospital fighting off post-traumatic stress disorder, where it didn’t help that he saw a guard beat a patient to death. After recovering enough to return to writing and to Columbia, he received his Bachelor’s in English in 1948. He then spent a year studying at the University of Paris, where his first book of poetry, “The Arrivistes,” was published. Even there, he still struggled with nightmares from the war. He wrote that it was no trouble to see bodies lying about in his room, and a German officer who kept reappearing on his furniture.

He returned to Columbia to receive a master’s degree in English in 1950. He worked as an editor at the Bobbs-Merril publishing company for five years, then again returned to Columbia as a tutor, where he received his Ph.D. in 1959. He then became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, for eight years until 1967, then joined the faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, from where he retired in 1993. After his retirement, he continued to write literary essays and poetry and to translate French poetry. Making his permanent residence in Stony Brook, New York, he travelled extensively to Australia and Europe. He travelled to Jamaica a bit as well, visiting in 1991 to deliver a lecture at the University of the West Indies, as part of the school’s distinguished lecture series. On that trip he came to Munro to address the boys in the Chapel and exchange pleasantries and poetical banter with Iverine “Mother” Blair of blessed memory. He also came back to the parish to perform at a rainy edition of the Calabash Literary Festival in Treasure Beach in 2003.

Despite trying to forget her own past, his mother’s stories of her early life in Russia, stories full of poverty and rats, had influenced his writing style as much as his traumatic experiences in the war. It is said that he really wanted to write novels, but turned to poetry because shorter works were all that his ravaged mind could handle after the war. Moving to a new country after his childhood in a British colony and belatedly discovering his black and Jewish heritage had also left him with an identity crisis, but as he grew more confidently comfortable in his own skin, he also grew more confident in his own voice, and eventually revelled in his role as a quintessential commentator on American life. He wrote with first-hand insight, but with the cynical and clinical detachment of an outsider, a Jamaican outsider. “I couldn’t invent myself as a boy who has grown up in Iowa and lived in America all this time,” he told the New York Times in 1996.

He was described as the Chekhov of contemporary American poetry, and the exemplary writer of narrative poetry in America. Influenced by the great Walt Whitman of the 19th century, he portrays a different America, the contemporary America of shopping malls, highways, and sub-urban life. The poet Seamus Heaney called Simpson’s work “a touchstone for poetry,” and wrote: “Louis Simpson has perfect pitch. His poems win us first by their drama, their ways of voicing our ways … of making do with our lives. Then his intelligence cajoles us to the brink of a cliff of solitude and we step over into the buoyant element of true poetry.”

He was awarded the Rome Prize, given by the American Academy in Rome, in 1957; the Columbia University Medal for Excellence in 1965, the American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature in 1976, and in 1988, was awarded the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. The big one, the Pulitzer Prize, for his landmark 1963 collection “At the end of the open road,” described as a tour de force of American poetry and his stylistic watershed, was awarded in 1964.

On September 14, 2012, after battling Alzheimer’s for some time, Dr. Simpson died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 89. In accordance with a last request, we are told, he was buried wearing his Munro blazer.

Dr. Louis Aston Marantz Simpson was posthumously inducted for his achievements as a Pulitzer Prize poet and war hero, and his love of Munro College.

2016….?