EDMUND Dillon is the Chief of Defence Staff of Trinidad and Tobago. John Rougier is the Commissioner of Prisons. His brother Herman retired earlier this year as Deputy Prisons Commissioner. Martin Martinez is the current Acting Prisons Commissioner. Trevor Paul is a retired Commissioner of Police. Nathaniel Douglas is a retired Transport Commissioner.

All these men have one thing in common - they come from the wider La Brea community. Most of them were present at a function two Saturdays ago at the Vessigny Government Secondary School where they were honoured by members of their own home community, for their achievements. They were among the list of honourees who received recognition, and the gratitude from the community, as High Achievers in the Public Service of Trinidad and Tobago.

Most of them began school at the Vance River RC and then went to Vessigny Government Secondary School. Commissioner Rougier went to St John’s, then a private secondary school in San Fernando. Born in the village of Cochrane, Brigadier Dillon is also a graduate of Sandhurst, the military academy in the UK, that has turned out a vast number of members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force (TTDF), going back almost to its inception in 1962. The mutinous duo of Raffique Shah and Rex LaSalle were to make this academy famous in Trinidad and Tobago in 1970, as two of its then most famous graduates. And on the way to his current position, the Brigadier also served as this country’s Military Attache at the Embassy in Washington DC, a posting several of his predecessors in office had also been given.

Ulric Warner was also among the long list of honourees at the function, but he went to La Brea RC and then to Pt Fortin College, before attending UWI. He also did not rise to recognition through the public service, but among his achievements, he is noted as having been a key figure in the establishment of the Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited. This was listed in the citation as being ’among many firsts’. At present he is a vice president at Atlantic LNG, chairman of the National Libraries and Information Systems (NALIS) and vice chairman of the Youth Training and Employment Partnership Programme (YTEPP). He also served briefly as Chief Operating Officer at Caribbean Communications Network, parent company of the Express and TV6.

Trevor Murray also attended the same schools as Warner, and then went on to retire from the public service as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, while Fitzroy Richards was a member of the TTDF after leaving Vance River RC and before going to teach at the John S Donaldson Technical Institute. He retired there as Principal.

Justices Nolan Bereaux and Anthony Carmona, and Magistrate Herbert Charles, are more identified with Palo Seco, Los Charros and Fyzabad, nearby communities also in the deep southwest, but they were also on the list of honourees in the ’high achievers’ category.

No less than 21 young people were honoured for having won national scholarships over the years. One of them, Jovan Sankar-Paul, is now an Assistant Vice-President at the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation. She delivered the reply on behalf of all the honourees at the function. Two others, Alicia Charles and Soffiya Ali are now medical students, in the US and at UWI, St Augustine respectively, while Dexter Charles, a 1986 national scholarship winner, is now head of Gynaecology at a hospital in Sussex, England.

Others are either working or pursuing studies in a wide range of other fields, including Actuarial Science, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry and Law.

Billed as ’Celebrating Excellence’ the awards function was organised by a group known as the New Vision Pioneers, under the auspices of the Member of Parliament for La Brea, Fitzgerald Jeffrey, Minister of State in the Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education.

A total of 71 achievers were honoured on the night, ranging from students who topped the SEA examinations, to those who came in the first hundred, others who got multiple distinctions in secondary school examinations at ordinary and advanced levels, and others whose work helped uplift their communities, in addition to the high achievers and national scholarship winners.

Former MPs for the La Brea constituency were also honoured, all except Dr Albert Richards, the MP for the period 1986 to 1991, during the administration of the National Alliance for Reconstruction. All the others have been members of the current ruling party, the People’s National Movement.

’Celebrating excellence in the La Brea constituency,’ the current MP told his audience, ’It is indeed appropriate and relevant at this time because our young citizenry has begun to aspire towards excellence. They have seen persons from the community obtaining scholarships, attaining the highest position in many disciplines.

’We have recognised that never before have we seen so many of our secondary school students attending Presentation College, Naparima College, Naparima Girls’ High School, St Joseph’s Convent, Iere High School and Holy Name convent, Penal.’

This, he said, was due largely to the Government’s commitment to excellence in education and the achievements of the awardees themselves.

In reading out some of the citations himself, MP Jeffrey made special mention of Roy Chong Kit, to whom he referred as ’Golden Roy’. He was a La Brea student who got the highest marks at the then A-level exams in both 1966 and 1967. He was 14 and a half when he first wrote the A levels. He won the Jerningham Medal (which later became the President’s Medal) but was considered too young to enter university. He therefore went back to school at Presentation College, San Fernando, and repeated the feat the following year. He now lives and works in California, USA, and is said to be involved in the computer industry.

Energy Minister Conrad Enill delivered the evening’s feature address, and a varied programme of entertainment was highlighted with a performance by La Brea’s own Vaughnette Bigford, a rising local jazz songbird.