by Eldonté Samuel

A colourful procession of students, staff, former students, associates, and friends of Bishop’s College, Kingstown marked the start to the Diamond Anniversary of the Kingstown-based Secondary School with a thanksgiving ceremony at the St George’s Anglican Cathedral, yesterday, January 18.

Past student La Ferne Cato (front) with other past students and pioneers

The thanksgiving ceremony in acknowledgment of the institution’s 60 years of existence, was preceded by a march from the school’s compound to the Cathedral with musical accompaniment provided by the Cadets and the school’s steel orchestra.

Past student, Bishop Sonny Williams, who delivered the Thanksgiving Exhortation, thanked the founder for pioneering universal secondary education.

“Vincentian children were left in the cold because the places in secondary schools were insufficient and many of us didn’t have a chance at the elite schools and I believe God said to the Bishop: ‘educate them’ Bishop Williams told the packed church.

“…The Anglican community and Bishop [Harold] Piggot- they were the voice crying in the educational wilderness to prepare the way for universal secondary education.”

Williams who was a senior student at the Lowman’s Leeward Anglican school before stepping into the halls of Bishop’s College said, “I reached Senior 3 having failed all entrances, and I remember the second week of that school year, three of my teachers came to me and said ‘there is a place at Bishop’s College, we believe that you have ability and we want you out of this school’ and they sent me straight to it.”

He recounted that before preparing for school he had to tend his animals after which he walked from Lowman’s Hill to Bishop’s College carrying milk for people in his neighbourhood and still managed to arrive at school early.

Past-students and teachers of the Bishops College Kingstown

Williams said that he was able to afford school fees from his takings as a worker at Low Budget Supermarket on Saturdays and holidays from which he earned $3 per week.

“… And from the three dollars, I paid for my lunch and saved the rest, I paid my tithes.”

The ceremony also heard remarks from past student La Ferne Cato; the Rt Reverend C Leopold Friday, Bishop in the Diocese of the Windward Islands and Chairman of the school’s Board of Governors; and Senior Education Officer, Dr Godwin James shared two of his encounters with the school. He said in the 1980’s after one school had turned down his sister from union island, he spoke to the then principal of Bishop’s College and a space was made available for her.

“I was completing my praticom at the Bishop’s College Kingstown with excruciating pain in my toe, I had in-grown toenail and I completed that praticom successfully to become a certified teacher in 1988,” James said of his other encounter.

“ I was mentored by the then teachers of English and Social Studies to successfully complete that praticom exercise.”

Past students, Rosemarie Alleyne and Atiba Williams, spoke to SEARCHLIGHT after the Thanksgiving Service.

Alleyne who entered Bishop’s College from the Barrouallie Anglican School “had a very good experience with Bishops College…the teachers were interested in you learning even if you were kind of stubborn, they were there with you.”

And Williams, who is currently the president of the school’s Alumni Association had a great time at the Bishop’s College.

“…It was fun, it was laughter, [I] made good friends who became brothers and sisters…the changes so far is the building, but the spirit of Bishop’s College is still there.

The Thanksgiving Ceremony kick started a series of anniversary activities with the tag line: Road to 60 and beyond.