THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on August 13 in the years identified:

1969: The Kingston Spelling Bee Champion, 10year-old Dierdre Crooks, is declared the 1969 champion speller of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. She wrested the title from a valiant triumvirate of girls who kept the audience at Hotel Kingston on tenterhooks for the final two hours of the spelldown. Deidre’s victory meant that Vaz Preparatory School is winning top honours for the third time, having produced the Kingston champion for eight of the 10 years since Children’s Own newspaper inaugurated the Spelling Bee contest. It is also the fourth time that girls won the first three prizes. The champion is the youngest child and only daughter in the family of four of Mr Sydney Crooks, Customs Officer and Mrs Crooks.

1969: Changes i n the tax structure applied to local tax manufacturing in respect to trading in the Caribbean Free Trade Area are being introduced by the Government. These changes are concerned largely with duty-free raw materials and the payment of Excise Duty and are the result of representations made to the Government by the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association (JMA). They are announced by the Prime Minister Hugh Shearer at t he monthly meeting of the directors of the JMA, which he attended by special invitation. Under the changes, additional industries are to be permitted duty-free importation and purchase of raw materials. 1999: State Minister i n the Office of the Prime Minister Derrick Kellier details the administrative plans for ‘Lift Up Jamaica’, the programme through which the Government will provide employment for 40,000 Jamaican young people over 18 months. “A database will be kept of all workers under the programme and all prospective workers will have to have a TRN number which will be used as identification,” he tells the huge gathering of community leaders who meet at the Holiday Inn in St James to discuss community development issues.