Antilles School kicked off its capital campaign, "Imagine the Possibilities," last year, with an ambitious goal of $6 million — $2 million to enhance the school's endowment for financial aid and faculty development support and $4 million to build badly needed new facilities.
The school plans to build a new library, outdoor amphitheater, theater and fine arts complex, fieldhouse and four new classrooms. Every classroom is now in use every period of the day in the Middle and Upper School.
Antilles plans to break ground for the new library this summer and sought the support of the Benedict Foundation to fund the transformation of the current Upper School Library into a new classroom.
Created in 1983 by Peter B. Benedict, the Benedict Foundation is located in Florida. It supports independent secondary schools, with an emphasis on well-established schools with steady or growing enrollment which lack substantial financial resources of their own.
The Benedict Foundation honored Antilles with a $15,000 matching grant. As the school began to seek a match, John Percy deJongh Sr., who was widely admired and respected for both his outstanding legal mind and his service to the Virgin Islands community, unexpectedly died. Jim Hindels and Sam Hall, deJongh's partners for many years in the law firm Birch, deJongh, Hindels & Hall, wanted to memorialize deJongh in an appropriate way.
"John was an incredibly bright person," said Hall, a former president of the Board of Trustees of Antilles School. "A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he believed strongly in the value of education. Jim and I are past parents of Antilles students. John's grandchildren go there now. Antilles seemed like the perfect place to remember John."
Hindels, who eulogized John deJongh Sr. at his Memorial Service in October, agreed that his former partner would be pleased with this gift. "Nothing was more important to John than education. He believed that education was the way to success in life. This is a small payback for what education did for him."
The law firm of Birch, deJongh, Hindels & Hall committed $15,000 to match the Benedict Foundation grant.
Hall and Hindels knew that to name the classroom for John deJongh Sr., a total contribution of $50,000 was needed and they determined to make this happen. Hall decided to dedicate his previous $4,000 contribution to this purpose.
When John deJongh Jr. and his wife Cecile, a former member of the Board of Trustees, learned of the gift from Birch, deJongh, Hindels & Hall, and the $50,000 goal, they were also excited about naming a room to honor John deJongh Sr.
"We are also very touched by the generosity of Sam and Jim," John deJongh Jr. said. "We decided to commit $7,500 to this cause ourselves, and my brothers Stanley and Sydney and sisters Judy and Mary have pledged the remainder needed to reach the $50,000 total. We all know how strongly my father believed in the value of education, in Antilles School and in working to better the community. He would be very happy with this tribute."
Thus John Percy deJongh Sr. will be memorialized because of a joining together by many generous people – the Benedict Foundation, the law firm of Birch, deJongh, Hindels & Hall, Sam Hall, John deJongh Jr. and his wife Cecile, Judy and spouse Michael McCoy, Stanley and his son Tommy Douglas deJongh, Sydney and LaMae deJongh and Mary and Douglas Frate.

Dear Source:

It is unfortunate that things have progressed as they have regarding the Beal deal. However, If proper protocol had been followed and the people had the chance to vote first, the Beal deal might have been a go.
It appears the people are tired of government making decisions that they are regretting down the road. Let the people decide and vote, then THEY must take responsibility for the outcome, instead of justifiably blaming the government who removed all rights.
The people are merely revolting against an administration that has followed the footsteps of its predecessors by not allowing them to be a part of the democratic process. The Beal deal quite possibly might have been the "right thing" for the people of the island; however when we do not adhere to established protocol, we can look to reap a whirlwind every time.

Marie Smith

In a united effort to nurture spiritual values in the territory's youth, Dr. Wycherley Gumbs, president of the Interfaith Coalition of St. Thomas-St. John, met with Education Commissioner Ruby Simmonds, Monday to establish "Clergy Support for Schools and Families."
Sen. Judy M. Gomez, Richard Evangelista and several school counselors also attended the meeting. Evangelista represented Senate President Vargrave Richards, who has established a similar coalition in St. Croix.
Gumbs stated that the group's mission is "to forge support from the faith communities through the Department of Education . . . and weave a seamless robe of care for the well-being of our children to effect a real and lasting healing in our community."
Simmonds said in part that "while we have a responsibility to keep church and state separate, we also have a responsibility to recognize that our children are whole human beings with a spiritual center."
"We live in a throw away society, where everything is disposable," the commissioner said, adding that "our children are not disposable." She said it was up to the schools, the parents and the clergy to reinforce spiritual values in the territory's youth.
Monique Matthias, a St. John counselor, cautioned that children "get contradictory messages about their value in the community . . . these messages impact how children place value in each other."
Evangelista shared the progress which has been made by Richard's St. Croix group "Ministers/Clergy in Partnership for Youth Development NOW." Several of the counselors shared accounts of their experience with students in crisis.
A follow-up meeting of the newly formed group is scheduled for February when Gumbs said he hopes to have representatives of the Parent Teacher Associations, and more members of the faith community.

A hearing is set for 10 a.m. Wednesday before Territorial Police Chief Jose Garcia on a class action suit brought against the V.I. Police Department
by the Law Enforcement Supervisors Union over poor working conditions and numerous health hazards.
A dozen officers of the Police Department have taken up office space in Emancipation Garden after moving out of their structurally deficient offices across from Vendors Plaza. The VIPD forensics unit moved out of their 6-year-old offices three weeks ago when ventilation and electrical problems threatened the health of the officers and crime scene technicians. The problems were compounded recently by rodent infestation and the lack of a cleaning service.
The Source has learned that for some time, the officers have complained of the problems at the office known commonly as the "crime lab" only to have their complaints fall on apparent deaf ears.
The biggest problem appears to be the lack of adequate facilities to dry and properly store bloody clothing gathered at crime scenes for use as evidence.
For some time the blood soiled garments were hung on a makeshift line outside the crime lab but the scent began to infiltrate the nearby Tourism Department Hospitality Lounge. Complaints from that agency led to the forensics unit ending the practice.
In addition, improper refrigeration coolers at the crime lab has made it virtually impossible to properly store blood samples for use as evidence.
The forensics unit is an arm of the police department’s investigation bureau under the command of Captain Alvin Venzen.
The unit’s primary mission is to gather evidence at crime scenes that would bolster the government’s case against suspects charged in connection with felony crimes.
The officers have pledged to remain at their newest office, Emancipation Garden, until such time as adequate indoor office space is identified for their use. The relocation of the crime lab from Nisky Center to the present location across from the vendor’s plaza, was described in the mid 1990s as "temporary", six years later, the move appears permanent.
For more than a year the department has been planning a return to its permanent headquarters located on the North Wing of the Alexander Farrelly Justice Center which also houses the Territorial Court and the Bureau of Corrections.
No date has been set as plumbing problems associated with the third floor corrections bureau continue to plaque the almost completely renovated basement, first and second floors of the complex.
Over the last several months police officers assigned to the forensics unit have applied for and received federal grant money to staff the crime lab. The federal money has allowed for the purchase of a second vehicle for the unit, supplies for the various crime scene processing kits, the hiring of crime scene technicians and training for the officers assigned to the unit.
None of the officers assigned to the unit would speak to reporters citing a department policy which prohibits police personnel from speaking to the media
but Capt. Al Donastorg Sr., president of the LESU, confirmed that the officers have moved out of the office. Donsatorg as head of the LESU will represent the officers at Wednesday's hearing.
The majority of police personnel in the forensics unit are represented by the Police Benevolent Association which has not commented on the
situation.
The Source could not confirm late Tuesday whether the federal government’s Occupational and Safety Health Administration, OSHA, has been notified of the potential health hazard to plague the Virgin Islands Police Department.

How does former Presiding Judge Verne Hodge's request for $400,000 in accumulated leave compare with payments to other judges who retired under the same generous legislation?
Presiding Judge Maria Cabret has asked for legal advice on whether she can release those figures, according to attorney Glenda Lake, Territorial Court administrator. Cabret has referred the request for that information to the court's attorney, Leon Kendall.
Meanwhile one of the former judges, Eileen Petersen, told St. Thomas Source that she can't remember exactly how much she received, but she put the figure at something over $10,000 and well under $100,000. Petersen retired in 1992 after 21 years on the bench (although she said she volunteered unpaid at the court until 1994.)
Her tenure is the longest next to Hodge's. He served for 23 years.
Only judges sitting at the time of the 1976 law, now repealed, were eligible for unrestricted lump sum payments for unused annual and sick leave at the time of retirement.
Lake Tuesday corrected the list of those judges. Besides Petersen and Hodge they were Henry Feuerzeig, Raymond Finch and Antoine Joseph and Irwin Silverlight, both now deceased. Judge Henry Smock was not covered by the legislation, as earlier reported.
Only those judges with 20 years or more on the bench were eligible to retire at full salary, Lake said. That leaves out all but Petersen and Hodge.
Pensions for judges now on the bench are capped at $65,000, she said, "a sort of injustice." And most are eligible for less since they may serve only one or two six-year terms.
There was no word Tuesday on whether the government will pay Hodge's request.
As St. Thomas Source reported Saturday, Finance Commissioner Bernice Turnbull has asked Attorney General Iver Stridiron to research the question of sick leave pay. He said he would probably send his findings to her in about a week.

Two staff physicians at the Roy L. Schnieder Hospital have been singled out for superior performance, Eugene A. Woods, hospital Chief Executive Officer announced Monday.
Recognized as one of the "best doctors in America," Dr. Margaret Sprauve, who specializes in high-risk deliveries, was commended by Best Doctors, Inc. Worldwide Healthcare Services for her "superior clinical abilities."
Dr Ruth Watson, medical director of the hospital staff, was recently re-certified as a Diplomat of the American Board of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Watson is also certified in internal medicine.
"These physicians are examples of why the community can have confidence in the quality of medical care the hospital provides," said Woods. He said in part that "these physicians' credentials would be recognized anywhere as evidence of highest caliber performance."
Woods also announced a new addition to the hospital staff. Board Certified Urologist, Dr. John Franklin, will join the staff Feb. 7. Franklin recently worked at the Harlem Hospital Center in New York.

Contrary to the popular notion that no one works very hard or has much passion for their labors in the Virgin Islands, there are many who toil with great energy and conviction to bring about positive change in our community.
In a small, nondescript office on the first floor of the Professional Building across from the Fort Christian Museum on St. Thomas are two excellent examples that I think of as the "Mighty Mites." The young women, each 5 feet plus power, are Carmen Nibbs-O’Garro and Bettina Carroll. They are the effective heart and soul of the Job Corps program for St. Thomas/St. John, making major differences in the lives of many young people.
The Job Corps has become an alternative rite of passage to that historically offered by military service as an effective training ground for young persons who might not graduate from high school, are not career oriented and need training and growing space away from home. Every year more than 300 young Virgin Islanders enroll at a Job Corps center on the mainland to learn a trade and develop more maturity.
"Mighty Mite" Carroll is responsible for recruiting appropriate candidates and providing initial training, counseling and follow-through on placement in a Job Corps center. As the daughter of a career military man, she knows how to be an effective drill sergeant. Her "tough love" attitude works well with her clients, and the experience and knowledge gained from her previous position in the Labor Department is another asset.
Carroll doesn’t accept that her clients "have to"drop out of high school. She’ll take their Job Corps applications but stays "in their face" until they get their diplomas. She doesn’t accept parents controlling the application process, answering questions and trying to make decisions for their passive children. Before she sends those accepted off to begin skills training, she teaches them some skills here at home — from proper handshakes to appropriate job attire to taking responsibility for planning the use of their time.
"Mighty Mite" Nibbs-O’Garro’s function is to find employment for those Virgin Islanders who graduate from Job Corps programs and to assist them through further counseling and training. She doesn’t have a lot of patience for young people who return with valuable training and want to go back to old habits of "chillin" with friends.
She also is a powerful advocate for making the centers live up to their promises. "Don’t send students back without GED’s," she insists. "Don’t train them for occupations we don’t have here in the islands, and don’t let them come home around Carnival time, when low season begins and we don’t have any jobs available."
The energy and compassion that these two women exhibit is a credit to the Job Corps and should be cause for pride within the Virgin Islands community. There is no way to measure their ripple effects — improving the lives of specific families, helping young people set goals and follow dreams, providing valuable employees to businesses and tax-paying citizens to the economy and, quite likely, reducing crime.
The "Mighty Mites" have a definite place in The Plus Column.

Don't bother trying to find out what the official low temperature was in the Virgin Islands on any particularly chilly night in the last couple of weeks. The answer is the same, no matter what the date: There wasn't any.
That's because "there is no official climatic data recording station in the Virgin Islands," Henry Laskosky, lead forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in San Juan, explained.
At the St. Thomas and St. Croix airports, automated observation systems record temperatures and other weather data for transmission to the NOAA station in San Juan. However, hardly anybody spends their nights at an airport, and the temperatures there, at or near sea level, are likely to be significantly higher than than those at the higher elevations where much of the population resides.
But unofficially, there's no question: It has been bone-chilling cold lately, even for January, in the American Paradise.
On St. John, Bordeaux Mountain resident Fred Trayser recalled, "Last year we had one very cold, short period of two to three days." But, he said, in the five years he has lived there, "this is the longest sustained period."
Naturalist Will Henderson, who also lives on the mountain, has been keeping his own records for years. This month, he recorded lows of 62 on Jan. 17 and 18, and of 63 on Jan. 16, 19 and 20. "Normally, I'm 5 degrees lower than sea level," he said. His home is about a thousand feet up, "and that corresponds to what they normally cite as one degree per 200 feet of elevation." He suggested that "it is probably more significant that the daily highs dropped down" for that period. He recorded maximums of just 69 degrees for Jan. 16, 17 and 19.
Henderson also cited the winds of that period. "Up on the mountain, it was roaring," he said. "My anemometer [a device to measure wind speed] blew away, and I haven't replaced it."
On St. Croix, Sally Lawaetz, whose late mother-in-law collected weather data for NOAA for many years, said the thermometer at her home on the island's West End "has gotten down to 62, with a couple days of 63 and 64" this month. That's nowhere near a record, though, she said.
"We had 54 degrees once, about 20 years ago," she recalled. "You could see your breath. It was delightful!"
Family patriarch Frits Lawaetz recalled that once the thermometer at his property showed a sudden drop to 41 — the same day hail was reported on St. Croix. "But that was just a fluke that quickly passed," he said.
Atop St. Thomas's Crown Mountain, farmer Michael Bryan is still "wearing long-sleeved shirts to work every morning," his wife, Tracey, said. There's no thermometer up there, she said, but "this is the coldest it's been in a very long time." Fortunately, she added, "the chickens have thick feathers."
Edie P. Johnson, who lives in upper Contant on St. Thomas, said the thermometer outside one of her windows showed the temperature in the mid-60s one recent night, "but the wind chill factor was in the 50s."
Over the Martin Luther King Day weekend, Jan. 14-17, in addition to experiencing plummeting temperatures, the whole territory was buffeted by high and howling winds. The Water And Power Authority attributed a series of outages on St. Croix and St. Thomas to these winds and reported a high number of trouble calls about trees blown into power lines. Four American Eagle planes made emergency landings in the middle of the night of Jan. 15 at the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport after having been diverted from flight paths elsewhere in the northeastern Caribbean.
Seas have smoothed out in recent days, "but boy, are those ferry seats cold!" commented one commuter who typically wears a skirt and regularly catches the first boat out of Cruz Bay at 6 a.m. For those in the mountains on St. Thomas's North Side, there's been a similar shock on early morning trips to the bathroom. "This is why I left Chicago!" one longtime transplant wailed.
"It's been that way over the entire Eastern Caribbean," the National Weather Service's Laskosky said. He explained that the phenomenon was due to "a long-wave trough" bringing Arctic air into the region. "There's a deep low-pressure system anchored over the northeastern United States that extends all the way to the Caribbean," he said recently. "And a series of short- wave troughs that have been developing off New England are making the long-wave trough deeper and deeper."
According to St. John's Henderson, "The unusual part was the organization of the front. The low that hit us was a solid six days — that's a very long front."
Laskosky said the San Juan station "receives reports from a number of volunteers in the Virgin Islands, sometimes e-mail, sometimes in the regular mail, several days old." However, he said, "no ongoing records are being kept." The only written records he could find covered the period of 1951-1960 or, in some cases, to 1965. They reported temperatures on a monthly basis. Here are some of his findings within those time spans:
– The lowest figure he found for the territory was recorded at the former Anna's Hope Experiment Station on St. Croix. It was 49 degrees, identified as a 30-year record for January. From the same source he found a low of 52 recorded for February.
– For Charlotte Amalie, the January low of 65 for the period was recorded as the lowest in 37 years; the February low was 63. For the Harry S Truman Airport (now Cyril E. King), the FAA recorded a 12-year low of 63 for January, and lows of 65 for February and 64 for March.
– For Cruz Bay, a January reading of 59 was noted as a 14-year low; other lows were 60 for February and again 60 for March.
– For Alexander Hamilton Airport (now Henry E. Rohlsen), the FAA recorded lows of 61 for January, 62 for February and again 62 for March.
Nowadays, the airport automated observation systems, operated jointly by the Federal Aeronautics Administration and the National Weather Service, transmit temperature, air pressure, wind and rainfall data 24 hours a day to the San Juan station. There it is added to the pool of regional data that, in turn, is transferred by computer daily to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. "Every day, every station across the country dumps its data to this center for archiving," Laskosky said.
Repeated attempts to reach the NCDC records section by telephone connected with an automated system that ultimately led to a cut-off and busy signal. The center's web site (www.ncdc.noaa.gov) lists temperature extremes for the 50 states but not for the Virgin Islands and other territories.
Laskosky said the cold weather the region has been experiencing this year "is probably related to La Niña," the global system that has overtaken the global warming effects of El Niño over the last couple of years. La Niña "is a result of extremely cold water surfacing off the coast of Ecuador and Peru and in the Pacific," he said.
The Caribbean, of course, has been getting only a fringe effect. Last weekend, ice storms swept south to north on the U.S. mainland, from Alabama to the Carolinas, causing widespread power outages that left many homes without heat as well as power. Record snows followed, and more ice storms are predicted for the weekend to come.
Meantime, California has been experiencing an unusual winter drought, Laskosky said. And St. Thomas resident Michael Friebus, who has family in Johannesburg, South Africa, said the current summer season there (seasons are reversed in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres) has brought both extremely high temperatures and severe drought.
With regard to the Caribbean chill, Laskosky said a few days ago, "I don't see it being changed any time in the next we
ek." As Virgin Islanders know, weather forecasting is an inexact science. The cold snap seems to have snapped, for the territory, at least.

Sen. Almando "Rocky" Liburd is urging Gov. Charles Turnbull to fill the existing vacancies on the Industrial Development Commission, saying there are only two members on what should be a seven-member commission.
Liburd said Monday that the role of the IDC is critical to improving the health of the local economy, which requires new investment for recovery.
"We need to be able to rebuild ourselves in terms of the eyes of the world," he said. "Investors in general do not have a good view of the Virgin Islands. It's difficult to understand how we can attempt to diversify the economy but have an IDC board that is non-functional."
He compared the situation to a person owning a vehicle with four flat tires, "unable to move forward."
In urging the appointment of a full commission, Liburd said there is no reason the IDC should not be functioning, even as the legislature prepares to consider reforms to the tax-incentive program that it administers.
The IDC program consists of business tax breaks and other benefits available to qualifying new companies investing in the territory and to existing companies able to qualify by increasing their local investment.

Gov. Charles Turnbull is being urged to fill vacancies on the Industrial Development Commission. Sen. Almando "Rocky" Liburd noted Monday that there are only two members on what should be a seven-member commission.
Liburd believes the role of the IDC is critical to improving the health of the economy, which, he said, requires new investment.
"We need to be able to rebuild ourselves in terms of the eyes of the world. Investors in general do not have a good view of the Virgin Islands," he said.
"It's difficult to understand how we can attempt to diversify the economy but have an IDC board that is non-functional."
Liburd compared the scenario to a person's owning a vehicle with four flat tires, "unable to move forward."
In urging the appointment of members to the IDC, he said there was no reason the commission should not function, even as the legislature prepares to consider reforms to the program.
The IDC administers the territory's program of tax incentives and other benefits for new companies that invest in the territory and qualify, and for existing companies willing to qualify by expanding their local investments.