FIVE PERSONS will be inducted into the Wolmer’s Hall of Fame during a ceremony to be held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston on October 26.
The proposed inductees are Patrick ‘Pat’ Russell, Lascelles Chin, Dr Lucille Mair, Alma Mock Yen, and Professor Hugh Wynter.
The names were announced last Tuesday at a cocktail event in New Kingston where scores had gathered to hear the announcement and mingle.
During the event, Milton Samuda, chairman of the Wolmer’s Trust, said: “God has blessed us with five stalwart inductees, each an outstanding Jamaican and Wolmerian.”
He added: “The Wolmer’s Trust and the entire Wolmer’s family congratulate and salute them. They served with distinction, and we thank them and their families. Family support, after all, is as essential as individual resolve is indispensable.”
Nominees for the hall of fame must have attended Wolmer’s for the majority of their school career and must have made an outstanding contribution nationally or internationally or have excelled in personal achievement or rendered exemplary service in the field of the arts, business, education, entertainment, technology, law, entrepreneurship, literature, government, science, sports, public service (including the military or police force), or any other worthy endeavour over a period of not less than 25 years.
Lieutenant General Rocky Meade, chief of defence staff of The Jamaica Defence Force and a Wolmer’s alumnus, is scheduled to be the guest speaker at the end-of-month event.
Lascelles Chin, OJ, CD, is the founder and executive chairman of the LASCO Affiliated Companies. He graduated from Wolmer’s in the 1950s before working at the pharmacy at the University Hospital of The West Indies. As a young man, he started a company to import black pepper from the Far East and peas from Portugal and the United States. After a number of ventures, he became the chairman of Henkel Ltd’s operations in Jamaica. He furthered his entrepreneurial activities in areas such as furniture manufacturing, data processing, car rental, horticulture, insurance brokerage, hair products, soya oil refining, and chicken processing. Chin currently serves as chairman for a number of LASCO companies and has served on boards such as The UWI School of Nursing Advisory Board, the King’s House Foundation, and the Bureau of Standards Council.
Dr Lucille Mair was a pioneer in the field of gender studies. An alumnus of Wolmer’s Girls, she attended London University and then The UWI, achieving a PhD via her publication entitled ‘A Historical Study’ of Women in Jamaica 16551844’. The study was the first to analyse the issue of race and class among Jamaican women during the period of enslavement. It was followed by the article ‘The Rebel Woman in the British West Indies During Slavery,’ which put on the platform the resistance efforts of the enslaved black woman. Mair was instrumental in the establishment of the Centres for Gender and Development Studies across the three campuses of The UWI. In her later years, she became a fulltime diplomat, becoming the first woman to hold the title of undersecretarygeneral of the United Nations.
Professor Hugh Wynter,
OJ, CD, is a medical doctor who is one of the leading professionals responsible for the development of obstetrics and gynaecology (OB/GYN) in Jamaica. Wynter founded the Advanced Training and Research in Fertility Management Programme at The UWI, Mona in 1979 and served as its director for 24 years. His research, practical expertise, and contribution to medical education have significantly reduced Jamaica’s infant death rate and population growth and earned him the 1998 United Nations Population Award.
Alma Mock Yen, OD, is a broadcaster who was a pioneer in the establishment of distance education at The University of the West Indies UWI). An alumnus of Wolmer’s Girls, she attended the school on a scholarship in the 1940s, graduating at the top of her class in English literature. A poet, soloist, choreographer and teacher, she spent the better part of her career at the forefront of the media fraternity in the Caribbean as a pioneer in the field and also lectured at the university where she accomplished so much. She is the author of My Recollections of Radio and Broadcasting in Jamaica.
Pat Rousseau, OJ, enrolled in Wolmer’s in 1944. While becoming one of Jamaica’s leading lawyers and senior partner at the law firm Myers, Fletcher and Gordon, he also helped form the Caribbean sports network SportsMax. As a negotiator, he used his knowledge of the mining industry to help craft the Bauxite Production Levy in the 1970s, which resulted in muchimproved earnings for Jamaica. He later served as president of the West Indies Cricket Board between 1996 and 2001, bringing the Cricket World Cup to the Caribbean for the first time.