81.7 F
Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesKean Honors Exceptional Alumnus Digna Marie Wheatley

Kean Honors Exceptional Alumnus Digna Marie Wheatley

The march on Government House and the Legislature that Digna Marie Wheatley led as an Ivanna Eudora Kean High School senior worked because a groundswell of more than 1,200 students, teachers, and community members rallied in support of the Class of 1988’s demands for school-funding equality.

At the heart of her teenage leadership role was divine guidance, Wheatley said Saturday at a ceremony that renamed the high school’s recently refurbished gym the “Digna Marie Wheatley Gymnasium.”

“I prayed and I fasted,” Wheatley told a crowd of close to 60 people who had gathered at Kean. “I asked God to show up, show out, and do what needed to be done.”

In 2004, the 25th V.I. Legislature passed Act No. 6674, which made Saturday’s renaming ceremony possible. Wheatley went on to to study at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and currently works for Johns Hopkins Health System as a risk manager. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in health administration and nursing from the University of Maryland.

Wheatley flew Thursday into St. Thomas, where her former teachers, classmates, and friends described her as a natural firebrand who pressured the local government into appropriating $600,000 for building six new classrooms, the school bus shed, the gymnasium, and funding other improvements.

They recalled how before the new facilities were built, Kean graduates celebrated their commencement in the school parking lot, an indignity that the students who attended the better-funded Charlotte Amalie High School did not have to endure.

They also marveled at how Wheatley arranged to have the police and fire service escort them during their protest, and how this senior class president took the lead at articulating their shared sense of disenfranchisement.

“It was just this whole movement to get everybody on board,” Class of 1988 member Carla Joseph said. “We just got sick and tired of being labeled a second-class high school.”

Patrick Farrell, Wheatley’s former classmate who now leads Kean’s Junior ROTC program, served as master of ceremonies for Saturday’s event, during which Je’Coy Hawley sang the National Anthem, Shellece Nelson sang the V.I. March, and Kean’s Jazz Combo presented a tear-inducing version of Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings.” The many speakers included Bovoni Baptist Church Pastor Robert Nelson, Kean Principal Sharon McCollum, and Tulip Fleming, who taught Wheatley’s 12th grade honors English class.

“She was an outstanding student,” Fleming said. “She was an excellent writer, she was disciplined, she was articulate.”

She was also a force to be reckoned with, recalled longtime educator James Kerr, who remembered powerful politicians imploring him to pull the 17-year-old Wheatley off their case (naturally, Kerr refused).

Wheatley apologized to the crowd for not having prepared remarks, but her unscripted speech – which sounded much like a rousing sermon, befitting her status as a divinity school student – brought many in the audience to tears.

“Thank you very much for doing this while I’m still alive,” Wheatley said, “and to God be all the glory and the honor.”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Keeping our community informed is our top priority.
If you have a news tip to share, please call or text us at 340-228-8784.

Support local + independent journalism in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Unlike many news organizations, we haven't put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as accessible as we can. Our independent journalism costs time, money and hard work to keep you informed, but we do it because we believe that it matters. We know that informed communities are empowered ones. If you appreciate our reporting and want to help make our future more secure, please consider donating.