The annual Martin Luther King Jr. service at the St. Thomas Synagogue, which honors seven high school students for their contributions toward brotherhood and peace, will be held at 7:30 tonight at the synagogue on Crystal Gade.
Guest speaker for the special service will be Dr. Ephraim Isaac, a noted biblical scholar at Princeton University.
Dr. Isaac, a native of Ethiopia, spoke at the synagogue during its Bicentennial Celebration in 1996, and won accolades throughout the community for his insight and erudition. He knows 17 languages, is on the editorial boards of two international scholarly journals on Afroasiatic Languages and Second Temple Jewish Literature, respectively, and is international board chairman of the Peace and Development Committee for Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
Dr. Isaac's topic Friday night will be "Jewish/African/American relations into the year 2000."
Dr. Isaac will also present a lecture at 7 p.m. Saturday at the University of the Virgin Islands, Business 110, on "Ancient Axumite Civilization and Religion and Peace in the World."
The public is invited to both events.
The students being honored at this year's Martin Luther King service are:
Eurita Austin, Wesleyan Academy.
Charesma Rhymer, Eudora Kean High School.
Tremain Wheatley, All Saints School.
Sharyn Niles, Charlotte Amalie High School.
Gamira Sprauve, Seventh-day Adventist School.
Westra Bea Miller, Antilles School.
Vivicka Garfield, Sts. Peter and Paul School.

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. service at the St. Thomas Synagogue, which honors seven high school students for their contributions toward brotherhood and peace, will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the synagogue on Crystal Gade.
Guest speaker for the special service will be Dr. Ephraim Isaac, a noted biblical scholar at Princeton University.
Dr. Isaac, a native of Ethiopia, spoke at the synagogue during its Bicentennial Celebration in 1996, and won accolades throughout the community for his insight and erudition. He knows 17 languages, is on the editorial boards of two international scholarly journals on Afroasiatic Languages and Second Temple Jewish Literature, respectively, and is international board chairman of the Peace and Development Committee for Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
Dr. Isaac's topic Friday night will be "Jewish/African/American relations into the year 2000."
Dr. Isaac will also present a lecture at 7 p.m. Saturday at the University of the Virgin Islands, Business 110, on "Ancient Axumite Civilization and Religion and Peace in the World."
The public is invited to both events.
The students being honored at this year's Martin Luther King service are:
Eurita Austin, Wesleyan Academy.
Charesma Rhymer, Eudora Kean High School.
Tremain Wheatley, All Saints School.
Sharyn Niles, Charlotte Amalie High School.
Gamira Sprauve, Seventh-day Adventist School.
Westra Bea Miller, Antilles School.
Vivicka Garfield, Sts. Peter and Paul School.

Police say they hope to step up patrols on the East End of St. Thomas to prevent the burglaries that have recently terrorized the area.
According to Friday's Daily News, burglars returned to Cabrita Point on Thursday and broke into the home of Jean Charlton, trashed it and stole items ranging from wrapped Christmas presents to a new bike that belonged to a 13-year-old friend.
Late Monday night two men attempted to break into the home of Charlton's neighbor, Edie Murphy. They broke Murphy's sliding glass door and slashed Charlton's screen but were scared off when other neighbors came to the scene.
The paper said intruders tried to get into the Bovoni apartment of Elouris Carr, a nurse at Roy L. Schneider Hospital, twice in the last week. When they failed the first time, they returned with a crowbar, said Carr, who described herself as "devastated."
Acting Police Chief Jose Garcia said he expects to get more police cars soon, which will allow him to patrol the East End more effectively.
Murphy and Charlton had complained that it took police an hour to respond to their frantic burglary-in-progress calls.

The Virgin Islands has entered the most decisive year in its recent history.
Last Monday (Jan. 11) the islands completed their acceptance of governance by Democrats, who now must find a way out of the financial sinkhole into which the territory has been allowed to fall.
In the morning, the 15 senators were sworn in. They subsequently convened to introduce themselves to a television and radio audience.
Lorraine Berry seemed relieved to be free of the heckling she endured the past two years as Senate president. She will relax by chairing the powerful Finance Committee.
One of her hecklers, Alicia Hansen, demonstrated again that although the other 14 senators more or less represent the Virgin Islands, she represents some other entity she identifies, usually in a shout, as "My People" —
Where is that?
Another devoted Berry heckler, Adelbert Bryan, resplendent in his African tribal chieftan's robes, marched again to his own drummer, declining to appear on the Emancipation Garden bandstand for the swearing in ceremonies. (He has reason to be shy of bandstands after last July 3 in Frederiksted.)
Later, in the Senate chamber, Bryan decried Eastern Caribbean influence in the Senate (five members), declaring he never would be allowed to hold public office in any of those island nations.
Most startling thought: Freshman Norman Jn. Baptiste, a native of St. Lucia, assured Bryan that if he moved to St. Lucia and applied himself, there was no reason why he, Bryan, couldn't become prime minister there.
Best speech: newcomer Anne Golden, whose graceful remarks charmed this television viewer.
That evening, the senators reconvened to hear the first State of the Territory address by Gov. Charles W. Turnbull, inaugurated one week earlier.
It was a short speech, under 30 minutes, but it made up in somber tone and candor what it might have lacked in length.
Tumbull confirmed the worst fears of those senators who worry about money. Not only is the cupboard bare but the termites are gnawing away at the shelves. The long-term debt is more than a billion dollars. Unless something good happens, the budget shortfall for this year will be almost $250,000, thanks to the Schneider administration.
You want more somber, how about this? Tumbull raised the specter of payless paydays, and said he is drawing up an attrition plan to reduce government personnel by 25 percent over five years.
As Sen. David Jones pointed out after the governor's address, it takes $26 million each and every month just to meet the government's swollen payroll.
Within minutes after Turnbull finished speaking, some senators were grousing he didn't offer enough solutions. That amounts to piling onto the quarterback as he runs onto the field for the first time.
Watching all this was congressional Delegate Donna Christian-Christensen, starting her second term. She knows her political future is tied to her fellow Democrats—Turnbull and seven senators.
One senses they will rise or fall together during this decisive year. Most of the public at last is alarmed about the crushing debt.
Turnbull, Christensen and the seven senators were elected to build a ladder, however shaky, out of the financial sinkhole and into the new century. They'll need more than unity, respect and service. They'll need some luck.
Editor's note: Frank J. Jordan is a radio commentator, former UVI journalism professor, and former NBC news executive.

A biweekly charter flight from Newark, N.J., to St. Thomas and St. Croix has been canceled because not enough seats were sold.
The flights, organized by GoGo Tours, did fairly well during the Christmas holidays but after that came in more than half-empty, the Independent reported Friday.
"The response we got was so poor that we had to cancel the flights," said Wendell Snider, a St. Croix hotelier.
"The frightening message is we had GoGo, one of the leading tour operators, advertising very aggressively at very good rates, with a deep discount from the hotels, and we couldn't fill the plane once a week," Snider told the Independent. "That's terrifying. It speaks ill of the image of the territory."
GoGo, a leading travel wholesaler, was one of several new charters brought in by the Schneider administration to supplement existing airline service.
The others include Apple Vacations, flying from Chicago; Sunsail/Britannia, flying weekly from London; Fun Jet/Sun Country, offering a weekly flight from Minneapolis to St. Thomas and St. Croix; Conquest, flying from Toronto; and Dansk Vestindien Rejser, flying weekly from Copenhagen, Denmark, to St. Croix beginning Feb. 1.

The School of Visual Arts and Careers meets in the Fort Christian Museum. So, when the students were assigned to create designs for a silkscreening project, it’s not surprising that one youngster decided to depict the fort’s distinctive clock tower.
Jared Etsinger — at 11 years of age, the youngest student in the class —never dreamed that his clock tower design would end up mass-produced on 6-inch ceramic tiles.
Jared, who’s now 12, says he settled on the clock tower as a subject for his pen-and-ink design “because it was an easy thing to draw, and because it was right there. It’s the most obvious thing about the fort.”
His teacher, Edie Paljavcik Johnson, decided to silkscreen the clock design in four versions, each showing a different time. (The actual clock has not worked for decades; those who gaze up at the tower do, indeed, see the hands in different positions on each face.)
The designs were used for gift tags to be sold with packaged greeting cards bearing artwork by other SVAC students. The teaching point of the project was to combine the design, production and marketing of artwork.
For the school’s winter exhibit last year, it was Johnson’s idea to combine the four silkscreened clock faces as a single piece of artwork. When Jared’s mother, journalist Jean Etsinger, saw the square configuration of the combined images at that show, “it seemed a natural design for a tile,” she says.
She found that the tiles could be produced locally by TOPS and secured a Virgin Islands Council on the Arts mini-grant to help cover the cost of producing about a hundred of them. Each has cork backing for table use and a hook for hanging. Proceeds from sales will benefit the two not-for-profit entities based at the museum: SVAC and the Friends of Fort Christian.
SVAC is an afterschool and summer visual arts program open to high school students. Founded in 1983, it has met at the fort for all but the year after Hurricane Hugo, when structural damage forced a temporary move. The Friends of Fort Christian provides support for programs and projects presented at the museum.
The tiles are being sold in downtown St. Thomas at the museum gift shop, Going Caribbean, the Camille Pissarro Gallery and MAPes MONDe; in Nisky Center at Noah’s Ark; in Havensight at The Pirate’s Chest (Paradise Point) and Southern Exposure; and in Red Hook at The Color of Joy.
To fort museum curator Dolores Jowers, a big part of their appeal is the fact that “the design was done by a young student, and that it reflects something that’s historic and yet supports a current cause.”
SVAC, she says, “is one of the most consistently successful youth programs in the Virgin Islands. The fact that the school represents a place where kids from all over St. Thomas can get together in the arts and prepare for a profession is very important.”
Although his art is being marketed throughout St. Thomas, Jared says he doesn’t see himself as a career artist at this point. “It’s just a hobby,” he says.
That may put him in the minority among his SVAC colleagues. Six students graduated from the school in August, school director Phebe Schwartz says, and “every single one is now in college majoring in art or attending a professional art school.”
The fact that the fort tower clock doesn’t work strikes Jared as “kind of sad, since it’s something we look up and see every day, and so do our visitors.” His opinion is, “I think they should fix it, whoever ‘they’ are.”

Three Brazilian nationals were arrested Thursday after they were apprehended on board the cruise ship Enchantment of the Seas with fraudulent credit cards.
The trio also had magnetic striping machines, blank cards and credit card encoding devices, WVWI reported.
Attorney Douglas Sprotte, director of the V.I. Justice Department's white collar crime division, told Radio One news that it is too early in the investigation to know whether the suspects are linked to the reports last month of 2 million bogus credit cards being circulated in South America.
The arrests were made by members of the white collar crime division, Customs and immigration officers and Secret Service agents in cooperation with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line security.
Sprotte said the suspects had made purchases of several "big ticket items" here in St. Thomas, on the ship and in other Caribbean ports.
Sprotte said he expects an advice-of-rights hearing for the three Friday morning in federal court.

"First Impressions: Fritz Henle's Virgin Islands 1948-1950" is being shown on St. Thomas for the first time.
The show, which includes 37 black and white photographs taken during the artist's first visits to the islands in the late 1940s, is open to the public beginning at 5 p.m. on Friday evenings at Jimmy's Studio on Government Hill.
Most of the photographs, which depict life in the Virgin Islands before the onslaught of major tourism, have never been seen before. Included are images of horsecarts and trading schooners plus the architecture of the islands.
Also included are photos of the faces of the Virgin Islands — young and old, captured in Henle style with all their character and dignity showing.
The show will hang throughout January and will be open on Friday nights during Jimmy's "Wine Down" open house from 5 to 9 p.m. Complimentary wine and tapas will be served.
"First Impressions: Fritz Henle's Virgin Islands 1948-1950" is sponsored
by the V.I. Telephone Corp. and a grant from the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts.

Gov. Charles W. Turnbull and Senate President Vargrave A. Richards can influence the direction of the Public Services Commission with their appointments of four new members to fill vacancies and an expired term.
The PSC, which was strongly criticized last year for rejecting an investigation into a telephone-rate reduction, is a nine-member commission consisting of seven voting members plus two senators who serve ex-officio without votes.
The PSC regulates public utilities, including the V.I. Telephone Corp., the Water and Power Authority and ferry rates.
The two senators who served during the 22nd Legislature — Holland Redfield II of St. Croix and Stephen "Smokey" Frett of St. Thomas-St. John — are not members of the 23rd Legislature and thus must be replaced.
Additionally, attorney Desmond Maynard's term expired in July and one seat remains vacant. Turnbull has the power to make appointments for those two seats.
Thus, four new members could be named almost immediately to the board. While that would not constitute a majority on the PSC, one of the remaining five — educator Luther Felix Renee of St. Croix — voted last year for the rejected investigation into Vitelco's rates and might do so again if the issue comes up, as it may.
Neither Turnbull nor Richards has given any indication when they will make appointments to the PSC.
Editor's note: For a complete list of the PSC board, see "Boards and Commissions" on the Data page in the Community section.

Developer Leo R. Sibilly wants to rezone three parcels in Estate Elizabeth — including the Sibilly ballpark and Sib's Mountain Bar — for a professional/business center to serve the North Side community.
In a letter to area homeowners, Sibilly said he is asking that Parcels No. 33, 34 and 44A Estate Elizabeth be rezoned from Residential-Low Density to Business-3.
"The proposed development does not intend to compete with restaurants and convenient groceries in the area," Sibilly wrote. "Instead, our proposal is to establish a small countryside business park with possible services such as doctors, general dentistry, pharmacy, secretarial/notary services, travel agency and sport fishing supplies store."
"Considerable market research" will be done to make sure community needs are met, he added.
Sibilly's letter noted that for 48 years, the Sibilly family has permitted "virtually unrestricted use" of the ballfield for community activities and as a playground for nearby Joseph Sibilly School.
But as St. Thomas has continued to develop, that area has become a "choice residential area preferred both by new homeowners and renters," and those people now need "selected professional services," he said.
Sibilly described himself as the "prime sponsor" of this project, and offered to meet with any homeowners who have questions about his plans.