As luck would have it, I arrived in Kingston for a business trip on November 10th the day before the Annual Reunion Dinner of the KCOBA at the Wyndham Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica. Based on the tirade of email messages which preceded the dinner I went to the event not knowing what to expect but at the same time looking forward to seeing friends whom I had not seen since my last attendance three years ago. As expected, many of the stalwarts were there and I got the opportunity to share some thoughts with Old Boys such as Tony Johnson, Jimmy Richards, Derrick Aarons and Stratton Palmer. Robert Kelly from New York was in attendance as was Audley Hewitt from Miami. I shared a table with Peter Thompson, Patrick Dallas, Scott and George Scarlett whose six or seven brother and three sons went to KC.
The cocktail hour, arguably the most important hour of any reunion dinner, was sponsored by the company that markets Levitra in Jamaica. (Levitra is Bayer’s answer to Viagra and Cialis) After leaving the bar most people ambled over to the strategically located Levitra booth where a beautiful female marketing executive asked a simple question of all who dared to approach her. The simple but surprising question was, “how is your sex life?’ What followed was a mini lecture on the virtues of this wonder drug, including such details as time to achieve full effectiveness, side effects and cost. The mini lecture ended with the offer of a free sample for those who were bold enough to admit that their sex life was not what it used to be when they were in university. In retrospect this was a brilliant marketing coup by the folks who sell Levitra because my estimate was that the average age of the Old Boys at the dinner was well over 50.
Attorney-at-Law Ian Wilkinson was the MC for the night and as he began to speak one immediately got the feeling that he was aging a bit because he began by telling us that as MC (for the fourth or fifth time) he was not going to give a lot of jokes this time around. Of course, he could not resist the urge for long and by the time that dinner was served he had already reeled off three or more of his specials.
During the introductions the MC revealed that journalist Mark Wignall was attending his first dinner. At that point Leahcim Semaj, who was sitting beside the Observer columnist, quite mischievously asked if there was anyone there who could confirm that the Observer journalist actually went to KC. Wally Johnson was quick to stand and give the confirmation.
Significantly, quite a few young old boys who left school in the nineties were in attendance. I had a few words with Drs. Hemmings and Stewart who were both on the 1996 winning School Challenge Team. The star young old boy of the night however, was 2006 Jamaican Scholar, Dane Ashman, who was there with his father, a 1980 graduate.
Rupert Hemmings delivered his first report as principal while Senator Anthony Johnson read a citation to retired principal Wally Johnson. In his response Wally, ever the historian, traced his career at KC which spanned a period of over 40 years during which he was art teacher, English teacher, sports master, debating team coach, senior teacher, vice principal and finally, principal.
The toast to the school was given by Stratton Palmer who, not surprisingly, was at his eloquent best. For me the high point of the dinner was the address by the guest speaker R ‘Danny’ Williams the newly appointed chairman of the JC School Board. At the beginning of the speech he was witty and sharp and spoke of the many epic battles on the sports field between KC and JC in his days as a student. He recalled that versatile KC giants like Lawson Douglas, DP Beckford, Al Francis and Barrington Watson were the kingpins of school boy sports in those days. And then as he changed gears he mentioned his initial shock and surprise, followed by youthful but misplaced glee, when during the cocktail hour the young lady in the booth in the hall asked him about his sex life.
The highlight of his speech was that in today’s world schools had to be regarded as businesses and hence needed people with management skills to be successfully run. He suggested that running a school of 1500 students and 100 teachers was like running a business and that the Ministry of Education and the school boards should establish formal training programmes to equip senior teachers and administrators at schools like KC and JC with the necessary management skills they need to run a large institution. He stated that administrators and principals needed skills in budgeting, finance, fund raising, project planning and so on; skills that were not taught to any degree at teachers’ colleges. As far as his vision for JC was concerned he outlined that the target for the JC Trust Fund was $140 million, the interest from which would go to the school to support the many programmes that the school had. It was obvious to him that schools and past students association had to be proactive in finding new ways to raise the funds that the institutions need. One could not help but think that with his vision and leadership JC was poised to regain its position as one of the top traditional high schools in Jamaica.
It was after midnight when President of the KCOBA, Kenneth DaCosta took the podium to deliver his address. By then I got the feeling that the folks at my table were dying to get to the bar for that final drink for the road or perhaps to the Levitra booth for another free sample. (When we got outside the bar was still opened but the Levitra booth, unfortunately, was not.)
Were my expectations for the diner met? I must say that I had expected a much larger crowd and I was half expecting to see a few women in the ball-room. As it turned out the only women there were the waitresses. The speeches were all good, but I dare say some of them were too long, which was the main reason why we were still there long after midnight.
