St Hill suggests naming Argyle airport after national hero

A Vincentian living in New York has suggested that the airport under construction at Argyle be named after this country’s first national hero, Paramount Chief Joseph Chatoyer.{{more}}

Trish St Hill, president of the Garifuna Cultural Retrieval Program, made the suggestion at a town hall meeting last Saturday, in Brooklyn, New York.

St Hill made the suggestion minutes after Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said that he does not support a proposal made by former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Louis Straker to name the airport the Ralph Gonsalves International Airport.

Gonsalves said Sir Louis had made the proposal in the House of Assembly some time ago, but he had quickly risen on a point of order and objected.

“Once I am alive, I don’t want you to call anything after me. When I am dead, it doesn’t matter me what you do, because I would not know. I could only deal with it once I am alive, and I am hoping that even if I am dead, you don’t change the name from the Argyle International Airport. So this is not for my glorification. I am not a perfect human being. I have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” the Prime Minister said.

Responding to St Hill, Gonsalves said that while the matter will continue to be discussed and other names will come into the mix, he thinks the Joseph Chatoyer International Airport is “a perfectly good name.

“Certainly far better than a Ralph Gonsalves International Airport. But that is something which the people will throw up the ideas, it is not necessarily something which will have to be decided now. It is an ongoing discussion.”