This weekend marks the opening of St. Thomas Soccer Association's first Women's Soccer League. The League will showcase three teams: The Ivanna Eudora Kean High School (IEKHS) Rays for Life, the United We Stand Queen Upsetters and the Antillean Strikers Women
This past year, STSA expanded its role, hosting the women's team from the BVI, as well as organizing some friendly games between women on St. Thomas and a women's team that consisted of players from St. John and St. Croix. These friendly games gave women of varied skill levels on St. Thomas the chance to gain experience in a game setting, and served as warmup for playing in the league.
This weekend, the St. Thomas Soccer Association opens its 2001 women's league. The participating teams will play according to the following schedule:
Sunday
Game 1: Rays for Life v. Antillean Strikers
Game 2: Antillean Strikers v. UWS Queens
Game 3: Ray's for Live v. UWS Queens
March 11
Game 1: Rays' for Life v. UWS Queens
Game 2: Rays for Life v. Antillean Strikers
Game 3: UWS Queens v. Antillean Strikers
March 15-17
Women's Soccer Tournament with other invited teams (venue and schedule to be announced)
March 25
Game 1: Ray's for Life v. Antillean Strikers
Game 2: UWS Queens v. Rays for Life
Game 3: UWS Queens v. Antillean Strikers
The teams will play on the regulation size field, but play 60 minute games. The first game will begin at 3 p.m. sharp, with a short break between games.
Please come out and support the women and the St. Thomas Soccer Association, as they grow and take on new challenges. The competition will be good, and in the spirit of FIFA "fair play."

The business department at Charlotte Amalie High School is placing business students who are to graduate in June in on-the-job training for their final semester.
The students are highly qualified and would make great part-time employees for local businesses, according to business teacher Richard Brown.
"We've placed 51 students so far," Brown said, "but we need help placing three or four more."
Because they are seniors the students are available to work from 1 to 5 p.m. four days a week and are usually paid minimum wage for their services.
The training period is for 10 to 12 weeks, Brown said.
All students have been trained in the areas of word processing, keyboarding, general office procedures and communications skills.
Anyone wishing to hire one of the students should contact Brown at CAHS at 774-0780 ext. 2127.

Dear Source:
Congratulations on your award.
I lived on St. Thomas for three years, and now I read your paper every day without a miss. I look forward to the true and unbiased articles that keep me informed, as I still have property and friends there.
I am a Caucasian from Florida and was treated awful by the local black folk there. I had a hard time with the corruption and hatred on the island, especially directed toward whites from the States. We tried to fit in and even made some large investments, which we lost our shirts on.
The Virgin Islands is a beautiful place with some great people, but overall the crime and hatred are too much to bear.
My hat's off to you for keeping your sanity in an insane place. Maybe with your help and that of others, the V.I. can once again be a great place to live. Keep up the great work.
I look foward every morning to the St. Thomas Source. With people like you there, maybe we will be able to return someday, as my heart is sad from leaving.
Dave Belardi
Sarasota, Fla.

The first Baume & Mercier-designed Internet café in the world was presented to residents of St. Thomas Thursday night at a "Grand Opening Celebration" on the second floor of Little Switzerland's Main Street store.
The café is the brainchild of Patrick Heron, Little Switzerland's general merchandise manager, and Stephane Barraque, general manager of Baume & Mercier's Caribbean operations. Baume & Mercier is a Geneva-based, high-end watchmaking company.
Heron said retail space on the second floor is not very valuable on Main Street, so, "We thought, what do our customers want? A clean bathroom (which in this case is marble), a place to rest, somewhere they can get their e-mail."
Barraque agreed. "When people are making a decision to buy a $100,000 watch, you don't want to rush them," he said. "Let them come up here, have a drink, relax and think it over."
The design, which Barraque said was patterned after a salon held in Geneva, has glass-paneled flooring, changing-color fiber optics in the ceiling and modern, comfortable-looking furniture lining the walls. The 1,250-square-foot space housed the elegant William and Daniel's restaurant from 1986 to 1989.
A bank of five computers sits against one wall, connected to wireless Internet access. Customers can go on-line, check their e-mail or peruse the Baume & Mercier web site.
In order to access the Internet, Barraque said, users will be asked to answer 10 questions about watch buying. "We want to find out what our customers are looking for in a watch," he said.
Answering the questions will also make the users eligible to win a watch.
When asked why, of all the places in the world, Baume & Mercier chose to open the first of these cafés on St. Thomas, he said, "We calculated that 1.5 million people pass in front of this store every year."
Heron said his motivation was that Main Street had "nothing like this, where people could relax, get away from the noise" and crowds on the street.
Customers are not the only ones who will use the café, which also serves beer, wine and bottled water, "at reasonable prices," according to Heron.
He said, some people who work on Main Street have already visited the café during a break in the workday to check their e-mail.
To learn more about Baume & Mercier, click here.

The lead attorney for prosecution of Virgin Islands public corruption cases has resigned, apparently because of a contract dispute.
Attorney Boyd Sprehn, who has worked with the special Task Force on Public Corruption for the past year, has already left the V.I. Justice Department and could not be reached for comment Friday.
Both Attorney General Iver Stridiron and V.I. Inspector General Steven Van Beverhoudt praised Sprehn's work and lamented his departure. The task force is a joint effort between their agencies, funded by a federal grant through the Law Enforcement Planning Commission.
They said they will meet this afternoon to talk about finding a replacement.
"I think it's a temporary setback," said Van Beverhoudt. Prosecutions may have to be put on hold.
"I'm hoping that by May they'll have a replacement," he said. Meanwhile, "that's not going to stop us from doing our investigations."
The Insepctor General's office continues to work with Nicholas Peru, special agent for the V.I. Justice Department, on investigating cases of public corruption.
Stridiron was also optimistic that Justice will find a replacement very quickly. He said he is reviewing resumes that he received last year when the territory first advertised for the position.
Sprehn was paid $75,000 a year; his contract ran through January of this year.
Problems arose with the renewal partly because the grant money was not released in a timely manner, Stridiron and Van Beverhoudt said.
"Apparently there is some issue between LEPC and the federal government," Stridiron said, that resulted in the money coming late this year.
"The local government couldn't sign off on (the contract renewal) until the funds were in place," Van Beverhoudt said.
Stridiron also blamed local bureaucracy. He said at one point Justice was told Sprehn needed a license to practice, which Justice disputed, and that Sprehn's payments came late. He tried putting Sprehn on the local payroll but could only offer him $65,000, plus benefits.
The task force worked with but was separate from Justice's White Collar Crime Unit. Assistant Attorney General Winston Chen is director of that unit.

If you are a cable TV customer in the territory and your picture goes bad for a few minutes each day over the next month while watching your favorite show, don’t bother calling the station. It’s the sun’s fault.
Because of "sun outages," Innovative Cable TV St. Croix and Innovative Cable TV St. Thomas-St. John customers will experience temporary service interruptions. Sun outage, which is also called sun fade and sun transit, occurs when the sun aligns behind an orbiting satellite for a few minutes each day, according to Innovative Communication Corp. When this occurs, the radio frequency energy from the sun can overpower the signal from the satellite, causing the loss of programming.
Both cable companies have received notices from programmers that the spring sun outage period will occur over the next 30 days.
"Sun outage activity is standard, and it occurs twice a year in the spring and fall," said Adrian LaBennett, general manager of the St. Croix cable system. "Customers will notice that the sun outages affect different satellites at different times, which means that channels will be affected at various times in the late afternoon and early evening hours."
Due to the many differences in ground station equipment, some stations may experience a complete loss of signal while others may only experience a tolerable degradation of signal. According to Andrea Martin, general manager of St. Thomas-St. John Cable TV, the process locally can take five to 15 minutes.
Viewers will likely see a slight graininess to their channels that will gradually become worse. At some point in the sun outage the channel picture will disappear completely and then gradually return.

Dear Source:
I thought this was too cute not to share:
Age 3: She looks at herself and sees a Queen.
Age 8: She looks at herself and sees Cinderella.
Age 15: She looks at herself and sees an Ugly Sister ("Mom, I can't go to school looking like this!")
Age 20: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly," but decides she's going out, anyway.
Age 30: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly," but decides she doesn't have time to fix it, so she's going out, anyway.
Age 40: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly," but says, "At least, I am clean," and goes out, anyway.
Age 50: She looks at herself and says "I am," and goes wherever she wants to go.
Age 60: She looks at herself and reminds herself of all the people who can't even see themselves in the mirror anymore, and goes out and conquers the world.
Age 70: She looks at herself and sees wisdom, laughter and ability, and goes out and enjoys life.
Age 80: She doesn't bother to look. Just puts on a purple hat and goes out to have fun with the world.
Maybe we should all grab that purple hat earlier.
If you send this on to all the women you are grateful to have as friends today in celebration of March as International Women's Month, something good will happen: You will boost many another woman's self-esteem.
Corinne Van Rensselaer
St. Thomas

Editor's note: The Source as a rule does not publish mass-forwarded inspirational and/or humorous messages. As International Women's Month gets under way, this one seemed worthy of being considered an exception.

A meeting for parents and guardians of students in the Josseph Sibilly Elementary carnival troupe will be held at 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6.

The Edith L. Williams Elementary School PTA will hold a Fun Day from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 3, on the school's campus.
The fundraiser will feature food and drinks for sale and an assortment of activities for children of all ages, games, sport tournaments, and face painting.
The admission is free. Prizes will be awarded throughout the day.
All proceeds will go toward achool supplies and materials and fun other educational activites for the students.
For more information call 775-0820.

The Joseph Sibilly Elementary School carnival troupe's parents and guardians will meet at 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6.