A district-wide Primary Conference is scheduled for all kindergarten through third grade teachers from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday, May 3, and Friday, May 4, at the Palms Court Harbor View Hotel.
Primary, Special Education, Multiage and Bilingual teachers are targeted for the two-day conference.

May 1, 2001 — Travel in both directions on Weymouth-Rhymer Highway between Donoe Road and the Fort Mylner shopping center will be reduced Tuesday night and closed Wednesday and Thursday nights from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for asphalt paving work.
Motorists will be able to travel in a single lane both directions Tuesday night, Public Works paving project supervisor Richard Catus said.
On Wednesday and Thursday nights, according to a Government House release, motorists traveling from town toward Tutu will be detoured on Donoe Road up to the Donoe bypass. However, Donoe Road will be closed to traffic heading down from the bypass to the highway.
Catus said drivers approaching the highway on Brookman Road/Turpentine Run will be able to turn left into the Fort Mylner parking lot but will not be able to exit the lot onto the highway. At that intersection, by the Banco Popular building, drivers on Brookman Road will be able to turn right onto the highway or proceed across it to the Tutu Park Mall entrance.
Traffic headed toward town on the highway from Four Winds will have to turn left or right at the Banco Popular/Kmart entrance intersection, except for persons who reside between Donoe and Fort Mylner, the release stated.
Alternative routes for drivers traveling between downtown and St. Thomas's East End are the newly paved Bolongo Bay Road and Valdemar A. Hill Sr. "Skyline" Drive, Wayne Callwood, acting Public Works commissioner, noted in the release.

May 1, 2001 – Sen. Norma Pickard-Samuel, who chairs the Senate Labor and Veterans Affairs Committee, charged Monday that the Labor Department faces the prospect of losing federal funding because of problems that could easily be solved by the administration.
The problems are violations of federal mandates, she said in a release from the Legislature, but "Most of these matters simply require an executive order or a command from Government House."
Saying "absence of action" by Gov. Charles W. Turnbull will "cripple" the department, Pickard-Samuel specified three problem areas:
– She called on the governor immediately to authorize "numerous" Labor requests to "fill positions of director, auditor, fraud investigator and bank reconciler in the Division of Unemployment Compensation." These positions are federally mandated, with federal grants available to fund the salaries, she said.
– She said the Division of Occupational Safety is required to have an industrial hygienist and could be closed for non-compliance if one is not hired.
– She asked Turnbull to "please instruct and direct your Commissioner of Finance" to release what she described as $199,000 held by Finance "in trust for the Department of Labor."

May 1, 2001 – Sen. Norma Pickard-Samuel, who chairs the Senate Labor and Veterans Affairs Committee, charged Monday that the Labor Department faces the prospect of losing federal funding because of problems that could easily be solved by the administration.
The problems are violations of federal mandates, she said in a release from the Legislature, but "Most of these matters simply require an executive order or a command from Government House."
Saying "absence of action" by Gov. Charles W. Turnbull will "cripple" the department, Pickard-Samuel specified three problem areas:
– She called on the governor immediately to authorize "numerous" Labor requests to "fill positions of director, auditor, fraud investigator and bank reconciler in the Division of Unemployment Compensation." These positions are federally mandated, with federal grants available to fund the salaries, she said.
– She said the Division of Occupational Safety is required to have an industrial hygienist and could be closed for non-compliance if one is not hired.
– She asked Turnbull to "please instruct and direct your Commissioner of Finance" to release what she described as $199,000 held by Finance "in trust for the Department of Labor."

May 1, 2001 — Virgin Islander Peter Holmberg beat Bertrand Pacé to become a three time winner of the prestigious Congressional Cup match racing event held at the Long Beach Yacht Club.
Holmberg came back from a first race loss to beat Pacé in the next two races Sunday and win his third Crimson Blazer in four years, according to the Congressional Cup web-site.
"The first one's sweet, but this was harder," Holmberg said. "Pacé is a terrific sailor. I had to work harder than I ever have to win."
Holmberg, 40, represented his hometown St. Thomas Yacht Club of the U.S. Virgin Islands but, more relevant, led a crew from Larry Ellison's Oracle America's Cup campaign, currently training 60 miles up the coast at Ventura. Pacé, 38 and third-ranked in the world, sailed with a Kiwi crew from his new employer, America's Cup defender Team New Zealand.
Holmberg became only the second sailor to win the Congressional more than twice, following victories in 1998 and '99. Rod Davis, a potential helmsman for the Italy's next Prada Challenge, has won it four times, but he lost two straight to Pacé in the semifinals, as Holmberg swept Stars & Stripes' Ken Read to set up the final. Read won two from Davis for third place.
For a complete report on the Congressional Cup Regatta go to www.lbyc.org

May 1, 2001 — Gov. Charles Turnbull has outlined how he wants the U.S. Interior Department to proceed with its controversial plans that established national monuments in the territory's waters.
In a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton on Friday, Turnbull said ownership issues regarding the monuments created by former President Clinton need to be settled before any management plans for the areas are put in place.
"This jurisdictional issue should be resolved post haste prior to any further discussions about rules and regulations for the management of the proclaimed Coral Reef National Monument and the expansion of the Buck Island National Monument," Turnbull told Norton.
In the last days of his administration, Clinton created the 12,700-acre V.I. Coral Reef National Monument off St. John and expanded the Buck Island Reef National Monument off St. Croix by 18,000 acres. The designation and expansion, which bans fishing, anchoring and other activities in the area in order to conserve and restore coral reef ecosystems and marine life, have raised the ire of local politicians because they claim the land in question belongs to the people of the Virgin Islands.
According to Clinton's proclamation, the National Park Service has two years to prepare a management plan for Buck Island and three years for the St. John monument.
V.I. Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole said he supports Turnbull’s position. As chairman of the Senate Environmental Protection Committee, Cole held three public hearings on the monument issue and said he came away with the position that the land in question belongs to the Virgin Islands.
Both he and Turnbull point to an act carried out by then-President Gerald Ford in 1974 that transferred the land in question to the Virgin Islands. However, the Interior Department under former Secretary Bruce Babbitt disagreed.
"We believe the monument designation is against federal rules and regulations," Cole said, noting that on a recent trip to Washington, D.C., he gave the transcripts of his hearings on the issue to House Resources Committee Chairman James Hansen. "The first issue is whether the property belongs to the people of the Virgin Islands," Cole said.
Meanwhile, Turnbull told Interior Secretary Norton that the Virgin Islands will have its own Marine Park Management Plan in place by the end of the year. The plan is funded by the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force Initiative. The plan, Turnbull said, is based on ecological, social and economic concerns.
"We have collaborated with local and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations and stakeholders in the development of this Marine Park Management Plan and particularly the establishment of a marine protected area on the island of St. Croix by the end of this year," Turnbull said.
He added that additional areas throughout the territory would be added to the plan over time.
Turnbull’s letter follows Norton’s statement in late March that she would consider revising Clinton's monument designations not only in the territory but in several other states as well.

April 30, 2001 — In what may or may not have been a veiled reference to his recent contretemps with business leaders at a tourism symposium, Gov. Charles W. Turnbull on Monday hailed V.I. Carnival 2001 as "testimony to what can happen when the public and private sector and people of goodwill come together to work to achieve a worthwhile community goal."
In a Government House statement released Monday, the governor also pronounced Carnival 2001 an "outstanding display of culture, talent, art and pageantry" that will go down in history for "its beauty, its improved coordination and its safe and generally incident-free events."
Turnbull expressed gratitude to the V.I. Carnival Committee for bringing it all together and to the business community "for the increased sponsorship of Carnival-related events, which made many of the activities possible."
Although he did not name them, the corporate sponsors this year included the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel and Tourism Association (queen contestants and pageant); Innovative (traditional games); Pueblo International, with co-sponsors The Avis and Cingular Wireless (junior calypso competition); Coors Light/Bellows International (king and queen of the bands competition, Carnival poster); co-sponsor Cruzan Rum (Latin Night show); Heineken/Bellows International, with co-sponsor MSI Building Supplies (both calypso revues); Innovative Long Distance (Pan-O-Rama); West Indian Co. (the Village); Innovative Telephone (calypso competition); Knight Quality Stations, with co-sponsors Banco Popular, Coors Light, Innovative Cable TV/St. Thomas-St. John and MSI Building Supplies, plus logistical support from Lady Romney Shipping and WICO (fireworks); and co-sponsors American Airlines and Holiday Inn/Windward Passage Hotel (Latin Night, both calypso revuews, last-lap dance).
The governor also had thanks for government agencies that provided logistical support throughout Carnival — he named Health; Housing, Parks and Recreation; Justice and Corrections Bureau; Police; Property and Procurement; and Public Works.
On April 21, speaking at a dinner that was part of the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel and Tourism Association's 8th annual Destination Symposium, Turnbull had lashed out at the business community's opposition to his veto of a private/public Tourism Authority to oversee the territory's hospitality industry and its boycott of the advisory panel he created instead.
"There is nothing to gain by engaging in counterproductive actions and statements designed to undermine or postpone the progress we all seek and should all be working toward," he said then. He added that he was "disappointed that four of our tourism partners (the territory's two chambers of commerce and hotel associations) have declined to have their executive directors serve on my newly formed Tourism Advisory Committee."
In Monday's release, Turnbull also said the close of Carnival 2001 ushered in the countdown to the start of 16 months worth of celebrations being planned to mark the Golden Jubilee of V.I. Carnival as it was reintroduced to the territory in 1952. The observances are to run from September of this year through December of 2002.
"Properly coordinated," he said, "these activities have the potential of providing a major economic boost to our economy as part of a year-round program of events." He said the Tourism Department is to begin working with the 2002 planning committee "to ensure the integration of the Golden Jubilee into the overall advertising and promotional Virgin Islands campaign for next year."

April 30, 2001 — The fire that swept through an abandoned building on Beltjen Road in the early morning hours Jan. 15 created a double loss.
It killed Robert W. Heiser, a 36-year-old native of Virginia, who authorities say was trapped inside the building in an upstairs bathroom with security bars on its only window.
And it reduced to rubble and ash a classic West Indian-style wooden house and the attached masonry building, at least a portion of which reportedly dated to the late 1700s.
As of Monday, more than three months after the fire, it was still officially under investigation. "It's not a closed case," Fire Marshal Glen Francis said.
He was still waiting for a toxicology report on the victim to substantiate suspicions that the man was intoxicated or under the influence of drugs at the time of the fire. However, that report is not coming.
Dr. Francesco Landron, medical examiner, said Monday, "The Department of Justice has not provided funds for toxicology for this office." He said his office used to send off island for that type of analysis, but the government account was closed because of money problems.
Landron was able to determine that there was a high level of carbon monoxide in Heiser's body, and that finding is consistent with smoke inhalation, leading authorities to conclude that the victim died in the fire.
As for the origin of the blaze, fire officials have said there was no electrical service to the structure at the time of the fire, nor were there reports of lightening. Neither was there any evidence that the fire was deliberately set.
"We didn't discover any accelerants," Francis said, or any containers that might have held gasoline or other flammables. What the inspectors did find were "hundreds of cigarette lighters" on the grounds, he said, leading to speculation that the structure had fallen into use as a crack house. Neighbors had complained to police that vagrants were living in the building.
Francis said Heiser had been known to frequent the area and was seen about a block away from the house, by the Boy Scouts building on the waterfront, a few hours before the fire was discovered. A witness said he appeared to be staggering and was headed in the direction of the structure that burned.
Until the mid-1980s, the property was one of several along Beltjen Road that the West Indian Co. owned and maintained. WICO spokesman Calvin Wheatley was unable to provide a history of the buildings but confirmed that in the early 1900s, when WICO was still Danish owned, they were used to house company management brought from Denmark.
Each building bore a name. The one that burned actually had two — the lower portion was dubbed Villa Orient, and the upper level was called the Chapel. Built on a hill, the upper structure was behind rather than above the lower one; they were connected only via an interior staircase at the rear of the lower building, which was walled off in the early 1980s. Villa Orient had waist-high windows with wooden jalousies and hurricane shutters, tray ceilings and, in the largest room, a wooden floor. The Chapel had a domed ceiling, a terrace and wooden hurricane shutters. The structure sat on about a half-acre of land, surrounded by a fence overlooking the cruise ship docks, within easy walking distance of town.
When WICO divested itself of its Beltjen Road properties, Bluebeard's Castle Hotel bought Villa Orient/the Chapel. At the time, a hotel representative said Bluebeard's had no plans to develop the structure but wanted to protect its own property on the hill just above. The tenant at the time of the sale (this reporter) moved out in 1992. After that, Bluebeard's timeshare sales personnel lived on the property for a short time; since then, it has remained unused. It now belongs to Equivest, the corporation that bought Bluebeard's.
The property has not been cleared since the fire. Bluebeard's general manager James Storey said Monday that he does not know the status of the resort's insurance claim for the fire losses, or what the corporation will do with the land. "We haven't made that determination," he said.

Eugenie Octavia Roberts Martin, known to her friends as "Jenny," of #303 Peter's Rest, died Saturday, April 28 at Juan F. Luis Hospital. She was 62.
Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, May 6 at Faith Seventh-day Adventist Church in Frederiksted. A viewing will precede the service beginning at noon.
Interment will follow at Kingshill Cemetery.
She is survived by her husband, Alberto Martin; step-children, Kimberly Henry, Sonya Martin Clarke, and Earl Martin; sisters, Namomi, Janet, and Diana Cornelius; brothers, Leney Roberts, Clairance Roberts, and Jimmy Roberts; nieces, Verma Caleb, Ernetta Campbell, Goldine Morris, and Ulynden Harris; nephews, Nigel Roberts, Osbert Roberts, Kevin Roberts, Thomas Joseph, Osbert Joseph, Charles Aaron, and Cornwall Weeks; sisters-in-law, Christophine King, Estella Hunt, Glendora Martin, Catherine Anthony, Idona Jacobs, Winifred Martin, and Elaine Roberts; brother-in-law, Lorenzo Lawrence; cousins, Jean Simon, Monica and Rose Claire Murray; special friends, Annette Sonson, Iris Douglas, Myrna Cole, Victoria Sablon, Slyvanie Prince, Sister Walters, and Mr. and Mrs. Llewellyn Richards; along with many other relatives and friends.
Funeral arrangements are in the care of James Memorial Funeral Home.

The V.I Cycling Federation mountain bike team swept the field Saturday in the second leg of the Caribbean Cup Mountain Bike Series during the Desert Duel on Anegada.
While holding a cross-country mountain bike race on an island with a highest point of 28 feet above sea level may seem like a contradiction, deep sand and unrelenting rock sections proved to be more than challenging for the field of 30 riders from the BVI, Antigua and St. Croix.
Despite the sand that quickly sucked leg power and the mind-jarring rock, riders from St. Croix took the top three spots in the race. Jamie Keys, the V.I. national cycling champ, completed the approximately 20-mile course in 1:09:59. John Riggs took second in 1:12:39 and Jamie Bate just eight seconds behind in third.
With the weekend victory and one in Nevis in March, Keys takes a commanding lead in the Caribbean Cup series.
Donald George of Virgin Gorda placed fourth at 1:16:27. The BVI’s best rider and biggest threat to Keys, John Miller of Tortola, finished fifth after being slowed down by flat tires.
The course proved to be tough for St. Croix’s father-son team of Bryce and Craig Scott. Bryce, racing in the Junior Class, flatted in the outback of Anegada and ended up hitching a ride back to the finish line. Veteran racer, Craig, finished a little bloody but not any worse for the wear in 2:18:09.
The trip also proved to be a little financially rewarding for Keys as well. He picked up $100 for finishing second in a grueling two-mile, hill climb on Sunday and a time trial on Saturday. Riggs collected $25 for finishing third in the hill climb. The BVI’s Miller went home $200 richer after winning both the hill climb and time trial.
St. Croix will host the next race in the Caribbean Cup Mountain Bike Series on May 26 and 27. For more information, contact Michael McQueston at 772-2343 or check out www.stcroixbike.com or www.bvicycling.com.