Reprinted from the KCOBA Florida 2008 Souvenir Journal
“Giving Back” has become something of a cliché, often self-serving and meaningless. There are the millionaire athletes who donate a few hundred dollars to an inner-city school to buy forgiveness for their misdeeds. There are the billionaire business tycoons who lend their names to causes to get free advertising.
And then there is Audley Hewett, the de facto leader and inspiration behind the outstandingly successful South Florida Chapter of the Kingston College Old Boys' Association.
A Spanish Town boy by birth, Audley grew up in Kingston. With an uncle and two older brothers having attended KC, there was no doubt in Rupert and Berbie Hewett’s minds, which high school their third son would attend.
His 1949-56 time at KC brought him under the influence and direction of the school’s founding principal, Rt. Rev. Percival Gibson, Douglas Forrest (who succeeded Bishop Gibson as principal) and a host of outstanding teachers, among them the legendary S.W. Isaac-Henry. These men encouraged a successful mixture of academic and athletic pursuits (more successful in the athletics than the academics, Audley admits) that laid the basis for phenomenally successful careers in Jamaica’s life insurance industry and later in South Florida’s heath care delivery business.
“The interest they took and the encouragement they gave me made me what I am,” Audley muses.
Audley and his wife of 45 years, "KC Old Girl," Shelley
He got from them the notion that you could do anything you really set your heart and your mind on. So, for example, weeks before the Alexander Cup Tennis Tournament he told Coach Bailey that he could learn the game well enough to beat the “non-athletes” who then comprised KC’s under-sixteen team. That was the beginning of a school tennis career which saw him occupying the number one spot on the under-sixteen and later the under-nineteen championship teams. As a school-boy he also won the Jamaican hard court championship.
In track and field, Audley also successfully represented KC in the high jump, long jump and triple jump.
Equally importantly, Bishop Gibson, Douglas Forrest, S.W. Isaac-Henry and others imbued in him a lifelong respect for teachers and “a desire to give back.”
“I remember ‘Dougs’ going into his pocket to give a student bus fare. Somehow he knew who was in need.” And Audley remembers these deeds of altruism being done without fanfare.
That spirit, which would drive him in his professional endeavors, also directed non-business activities. That spirit saw him going back to KC, almost immediately after leaving school, to coach and to help in other ways. It led him to approach a priest at St. Georges College for permission to use the STGC courts to prepare a KC team. It led him to reject would-be players who refused to adhere to codes of discipline and decorum. His team nevertheless went on to win the tennis championship that year.
Audley, wife Shelley and children [L-R] Wayne, Natasha and Kevin
In those days, as now, the KC Old Boys Association tended to draw its leadership from the older past students while the more recent graduates occupied the background. In Audley’s time those older past students were people like Eli Matalon, Gresford Jones and Chester Burgess. And so he was somewhat reluctant when Eli Matalon nominated him to a Vice-Presidency, even as he protested that he was too young. He was the President before he turned 30 years of age.
“Those days when you had a meeting you an overflow attendance,” he recalls. “You had to bring extra chairs into the assembly Hall,”
And what does he remember about the achievements of that period?
Audley still speaks with pride about a dance he pushed the association to hold at the then Sheraton Kingston Hotel…music provided by the Meritone. It was unlike the formal annual banquets the association used to hold. In terms of fund raising, it eclipsed those events. Enough money was raised to help purchase a car for then retiring principal, Douglas Forrest.
He also got the old boys to do things for the teachers. “My feeling to this day is that teachers are among the worst paid and under-appreciated set of people even as they are being called on to produce the best set of people,” he says. “The world does not understand the value of teachers. Teachers have gone unrewarded for a very long time. Can you imagine if teachers were paid salaries comparable to sports agents, what a rich world this would be?”
Some 12 years ago, against this background, it wasn’t surprising that Audley Hewett played a pivotal role in the attempts to revive the less than vibrant Florida Chapter of the Kingston College Old Boys Association. The delegation from Kingston (lead by the late Bruce Rickards) which sought help for the school from old boys residing in South Florida, held their first meeting at Audley’s H&M Health Services office located in Hollywood.
From those initial days, he says, he resisted creating an organization dominated by a president and executive officers. His focus was on finding people willing to work collectively and cooperatively with “no egos getting in the way.” He also insisted on “using people in areas where they have expertise and skills, be it driving a truck, barbecuing meat or whatever…” The approach is symbolized by the “roundtable” seating arrangement at meetings.
The judgment on the approach has been praised by others. Not only is KCOBA South Florida the standard by which KC Old Boys Associations elsewhere judge themselves and seek to emulate, it is frequently cited as the example to which other expatriate organizations should aspire.
And what of the future?
Audley says the approach the association has adopted in recent times should serve the association and the school well. We’ve moved away from being a sort of “patch up” chapter to identifying medium to long term projects and seeing those through to fruition. The proposed opening of the Social Services Building at the Melbourne Park Campus is an example of the new approach.
He also looks forward to a better working relationship between the various entities involved in the development of KC.
“The Principal and the Board have to realize that the Old Boys have never tried to take control the school. What we have tried to do is to assist the school as needed. They need to recognize this desire to help comes from all sectors of Old Boys, not only those who can write checks for substantial amounts, but also from others who can contribute in other ways.”
Audley Hewett has been praised formally and informally as being a “man ahead of his time.”
While he openly admits that he’s less that an expert with all the new technologies, he is among the first to acknowledge the importance of these technologies in education and business. But he wants to see a balance between the new approaches and technologies, and the old fashioned way of doing things. “We can’t ignore the new technologies, but neither can we afford to lose the personal touch,” Audley declares.“We need to find ways to unite the two things.”
Audley has assigned himself a personal mission to encourage old boys to “give back.” He calls up old boys all over the world reminding them that the school still needs their help. He sends them photos and articles.
“We have to equip, encourage and guide the young people or KC will be a disgrace to those of us who are aware of the vision of people like Bishop Gibson, Douglas Forrest and Isaac-Henry. We have to be less selfish and self-centered, focusing more on what we can do to help people and less on garnering praise for our efforts.”
And where does he find the time? After all he has a family and a business to run.
Father of three and grandfather of ten, Audley states, “I’ve always involved my family in whatever I’m doing.” Shelley his wife of over 45-years, has been called an “honorary KC Old Girl.” His family stands fully behind him in all of his KC endeavors. “They don’t end up feeling as if KC is taking me away from them. They too have the spirit of giving back.”
Read Audley's profile written by Dr.Ivor Nugent in an earlier edition of the newsletter: profile
