Feb. 19, 2002 – Polymnia, a one-year-old choral group of St. Thomas vocalists, will present a concert at 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Puerto Rico Symphony Chamber Orchestra and pianist Dr. Adele Allen from St. Croix will accompany the group.
Under the direction of Lorna Young-Wright, the group and the orchestra will perform Johann Sebastian Bach's "Magnificat" in D, and George Frideric Handel's "O Sing Unto the Lord" from the "Chandos Anthems." The chamber orchestra will also perform Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 4."
This is Polymnia's second concert. The premier concert last year was a sold-out performance of Bach's "Mass in B Minor," an exceptionally difficult but extraordinarily beautiful work of music, according to a release from the group.
The name Polymnia is the alternate spelling of Polyhymnia, the Greek muse of sacred music and harmony. Polymnia, Inc., is a nonprofit corporation with the major purpose of promoting excellence in choral singing in the Virgin Islands, said the release.
Young-Wright is an associate professor of music and Chair of the Humanities Division at the University of the Virgin Islands. She has led the UVI Concert Choir, the Caribbean Chorale and several church choirs over the past ten years.
Performing will be: Lorraine Baa-Elisha, Kan Constantine, Detra Davis, Janie Imperial-Rohring, Ruth E. Morris, Monique R. Lynch, Tiffany Matthew, Marie Simmons, Joan Bennett-Williams, Erva Denham, Kirsten Kienberger, J. Andrea Lee, Nancy A. Morse, Mario dell'Olio, Charles C. Smith, Ian E. Willams Sr., Lawrence O. Benjamin, Mario E. Bryan, Dr. Alfred O. Heath and Gary Rosenthal.
The concert is $20 for adults and $10 for students. Tickets are available at Nora's Beauty Palace in Sugar Estate, Dockside Bookstore in Havensight, by calling Erva Denham 690-0307, Charles C. Smith 776-5473, Nancy Morse 777-6915 or at the door – if the concert is not sold out.
For those who might like to brush up on their Baroque knowledge before the concert, Young-Wright will be lecturing at 8 p.m. Friday at the Grand Hotel ballroom. Hors d'ouevres and cocktails will be served, to accompany "Expressions of the Baroque Style Period Through Works of Handel and Bach: A Perspective." Lecture tickets are $15.

Feb. 19, 2002 – Polymnia, a one-year-old choral group of St. Thomas vocalists, will present a concert at 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral. They will be accompanied by the Puerto Rico Symphony Chamber Orchestra and pianist Dr. Adele Allen from St. Croix.
Under the direction of Lorna Young-Wright, the group and orchestra will perform Johann Sebastian Bach's "Magnificat" in D, and George Frideric Handel's "O Sing Unto the Lord" from the "Chandos Anthems." The chamber orchestra will also perform Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 4."
More information is available in the Source article under menu selection Things to do.
The concert is $20 for adults and $10 for students. Tickets are available at Nora's Beauty Palace in Sugar Estate, Dockside Bookstore in Havensight; by calling Erva Denham 690-0307, Charles C. Smith 776-5473, Nancy Morse 777-6915; or at the door, if the concert is not sold out.

Feb. 18, 2002 – "Pardon our dust" could be the watchword at the Charles Harwood Complex for the next few months.
The Health Department recently began Phase 1 of a three-phase renovation of the Christiansted complex. "It's been in need of repair for a very long time," Health Department spokesman Lee Vanterpool said Tuesday.
Parking for staff and clients will be affected. While construction is under way, vehicles must be parked in front of the complex, in the area around the maintenance building and at the clubhouse. The area next to the motor pool is reserved for the contractor, for the Property and Procurement Department, and for ambulance access to the Charles Harwood Complex.
Vanterpool said that Roy Construction Co. of St. Thomas began demolition of two vacant wings on the main building on Feb. 13. Once that work wraps up, the second floor of the main building will be renovated. Work includes a new roof and fascia, gutters and downspouts. Vanterpool said part of the project is still out to bid. The entire Phase 1 should be finished in June.
Phase 2 will consist of renovation of the first and third floors and the first floor of the annex. Phase 3 will include building exterior work, sidewalks, paving, parking, lighting and security fencing. Vanterpool said the U.S. Department of the Interior is funding the project, but he did not know the cost. He said it is one of Gov. Charles W. Turnbull's fast track capital improvement projects.

Feb. 18, 2002 – Lt. Gov. Gerard Luz James II will hold his second show-cause hearing Thursday morning on why his moratorium on cancellation of property insurance should not remain in effect. The meeting is set for 10 a.m. in his office on St. Thomas.
James said in a Tuesday press release that the hearing will be a continuation of the one he held on Jan. 30. He plans to discuss facts gathered so far, hear additional testimony and determine whether the moratorium should remain in effect.
He is urging residents to attend the hearing.
In December, James, who as lieutenant governor serves as the territory's insurance commissioner, imposed a moratorium on insurance companies dropping property and casualty insurance. This caused Lloyd's of London underwriters to file a complaint in Territorial Court on Jan. 7 asking for a temporary restraining order on James's moratorium. The court denied that request.
The moratorium capped a year of clashes between officials of the Banking and Insurance Division and the V.I. Insurance Association. At issue are the views of James and others that the cost of insurance in the territory is too high; the mutually agreed-upon facts that there is a dearth of new insurers in the territory and a lack of insurance capacity; and the Insurance Association's view that the failure of James's office to grant legitimate rate increases has kept new companies from doing business in the territory.
For more information, call the Division of Banking and Insurance at 774-7166.

Feb. 18, 2002 – Lt. Gov. Gerard Luz James II will hold his second show-cause hearing Thursday morning on why his moratorium on cancellation of property insurance should not remain in effect. The meeting is set for 10 a.m. in his office on St. Thomas.
James said in a Tuesday press release that the hearing will be a continuation of the one he held on Jan. 30. He plans to discuss facts gathered so far, hear additional testimony and determine whether the moratorium should remain in effect.
He is urging residents to attend the hearing.
In December, James, who as lieutenant governor serves as the territory's insurance commissioner, imposed a moratorium on insurance companies dropping property and casualty insurance. This caused Lloyd's of London underwriters to file a complaint in Territorial Court on Jan. 7 asking for a temporary restraining order on James's moratorium. The court denied that request.
The moratorium capped a year of clashes between officials of the Banking and Insurance Division and the V.I. Insurance Association. At issue are the views of James and others that the cost of insurance in the territory is too high; the mutually agreed-upon facts that there is a dearth of new insurers in the territory and a lack of insurance capacity; and the Insurance Association's view that the failure of James's office to grant legitimate rate increases has kept new companies from doing business in the territory.
For more information, call the Divison of Banking and Insurance at 774-7166.

Feb. 19, 2002 – One man was killed and another was wounded Monday night in a what St. Croix police are calling a robbery attempt at the Harborview Apartments.
Donald Lewis, 31, was killed and David Encarnacion, 22, was wounded when two individuals sprayed a group with a dozen gunshots, Police Chief Novelle Francis said Tuesday at a press conference. Lewis and Encarnacion, both Harborview residents, were among a group of people sitting outside an apartment building playing video games at about 10:30 p.m. Monday when they were shot, Francis said.
Lewis was pronounced dead at the scene about an hour after being struck in the forehead. Encarnacion was taken to Juan F. Luis Hospital with a neck wound. He later was transferred to a hospital in Puerto Rico.
Francis said the two assailants apparently had gone to the apartment building intending to commit a robbery. On their way out, they fired a volley of random shots, striking the two victims. Francis said police suspect the assailants' presence at the apartment complex had to do with a feud with a rival gang but that Lewis and Encarnacion were innocent bystanders.
The assailants fled in two separate vehicles, both of which were found abandoned later Monday night in the Sion Farm area, Francis said. He said investigators have good leads on the identity of both fugitives.
"We're hot on their trail and the police department is withholding the names at this time," he said.
Monday's homicide and wounding came just more than a week after one man was killed and another was wounded in separate incidents. Ray Seeles, 47, was fatally shot by an unknown assailant at the FNA Service Station across from Sunny Isle Shopping Center on Feb. 9. Later that day, George Bridgewater, 30, was wounded in the neck by a bullet while at the shopping center. According to police, Bridgewater was fastening his 4-month-old child into a car seat near Junior's Jewelry at about 7:15 p.m. that Saturday when what appeared to be random shots rang out in the parking lot of the busy shopping complex.
No suspects have been arrested in any of the incidents. Lewis's death on Monday is the third homicide on St. Croix this year and the sixth in the territory.

Feb. 19, 2002 – The drippy, chilly weather lingering overhead should start to clear up by Wednesday, according to Brian Seeley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Juan.
"The whole of the Virgin Islands was lousy yesterday," Seeley succinctly put it.
Tuesday wasn't much better, with gray skies and intermittent showers getting the way of suntans for tourists and dampening residents' spirits.
While Virgin Islanders are quick to complain that so much rain isn't normal at this time of year, visitors at the V.I. National Park seem to be taking it in stride, ranger Laurel Brannick-Trager said. "I guess they know we can't control the weather," she said, but people do want to know when it's going to clear.
Seeley said the cool, wet weather is not that unusual this time of year. In fact, he's seen fewer cold fronts than expected this season. He said it was the moisture in front of a cold front that kicked off the gray skies on the weekend. By Monday, the cold front had arrived, to hang overhead for a couple of days.
The cold front means the dew point will drop, so prepare for chillier weather. "When it's usually 85, it may be 82 or 83," Seeley said.
He said people in the territory also should be prepared for high seas on the north and northwest coasts. "There are fairly large swells behind the front," he said. He expects winds to reach 18 to 29 mph. And there may be some thunderstorms in the St. Croix area, he said.

Feb. 19, 2002 — A federal training grant is making it easier for V.I. firefighters to "go bush."
Utilizing the $138,000 grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, fire officials arranged for specialized training in fighting forest fires that can also be applied to the much more common problem locally of burning brush.
Benjamin Santana, a former St. Croix fire chief now working with Global Business Solutions in Georgia, was contracted to visit crews at the various V.I. fire stations to conduct three-hour "Introduction to Wildland Fire Suppression" workshops.
"Being that we're firefighters, we have to learn wildland firefighting from a federal government standpoint," Fire Service Deputy Chief Boyd Brown said.
Trainees became better acquainted with weather assessment, burning characteristics of different kinds of brush, use of specialized equipment and different methods of controling the spread of fire. In their standard training, V.I. firefighters mainly learn to fight structural fires, spokesman Donald Charles said, so the specialized training offers them approaches they may not have known before.
Brown said one of the things trainees learned is that some local types of brush have a high oil content, making it harder to put out a blaze if they catch fire. Another is that when some trees, such as the caustic mangineel, burn, the smoke contains harmful fumes, and this may require special precautions.
Although the V.I. National Park is the fifth-largest in the national park system, Charles said, forest fires have never been a big problem locally. The most memorable in recent years occurred in 1997, when sparks from the annual V.I. Carnival fireworks display in Charlotte Amalie harbor started a blaze on the dry brush on Hassel Island.
But he said local brush fires outscale that very public incident by far, consuming hundreds of acres every year. "There have been a lot of brush fires, especially on St. Croix," he said.
But Brown, who oversees training for the fire service, said the introductory workshops, which were completed last month, will not be enough to improve emergency response to brush fires. For that, he said, the Fire Service needs equipment.
Officials are applying for another grant to help provide some of the equipment recommended by the federal government for fighting forest fires, Brown said. Meantime, a portion of the current grant has been set aside to install dry fire hydrants in rural areas. Charles said dry hydrants can help improve emergency water supply, functioning like a pumper when firefighters need to draw water from a pond or other body of water.

Feb. 19, 2002 – Giora Israel, who was general manager of Coral World in the 1980s and is now vice president, strategic planning for Carnival Corp., will be guest speaker at the Rotary of St. Thomas meeting Thursday, Feb. 21, at noon at the Marriott Frenchman's Reef.
Following his post in St. Thomas, Israel was next assigned to the Bahamas.
In 1990 he became a cruise industry consultant, and in 1992 he joined Carnival Corp. when he has engaged in a variety of international activities for the line in Europe and elsewhere. In his present position, he is involved with Carnival's international expansion, and with strategic developments relating to ports, serving as president of Carnival's Port Development Group. He also heads Carnival's Mexican Port Operation Company.
Israel has served as guest speaker in many international forums on tourism and the cruise industry in over a dozen countries.
A graduate of Tadmor Hotel College in Herzliah, he has also been guest lecturer at universities, including the University of the West Indies, and served as a visiting fellow at both the Oxford and Cambridge Cruise Academy.
In 1999 Israel, in collaboration with Dr. Lawrence Miller of Florida International University in Miami, published the first dictionary of the cruise industry in London.

Feb. 19, 2002 – Giora Israel, vice president, strategic planning for Carnival Corp., and former general manager of Coral World in the 1980s, will be guest speaker at the Rotary of St. Thomas meeting Thursday, Feb. 21, at noon at the Marriott Frenchman's Reef.
For additional information about the speaker, see the Source article under menu selection Organizations