The citation from the Kiwanis Club of New Kingston perhaps said it best - Grace Smith is the "heart and soul of the Trench Town High School". Smith, who joined the school's staff in 1970, has served as principal since 1987 and her tenure has been marked by "dedicated and distinguished service".

The Kiwanis Club honoured the stalwart educator at their annual prayer breakfast, held recently at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston.

Grace Smith

Among the achievements highlighted by the Kiwanians was her instrumentality in establishing a computer lab for the school, a project that was implemented with sponsorship from the New Kingston Club.

The facility, complete with nine computers, was opened in 1994. Smith went on to expand the lab, securing 22 additional computers, and now uses them to involve students in income-generating activities.

"That is how Smith operates," Kay Anderson, president of the New Kingston Kiwanis Club, tells SunDay Lifestyle. "Whatever you give her, she expands on it and whatever she gets, she uses it to help her students gain knowledge and skills that will serve them for life."

But beneath the firm disciplinarian and efficient administrator is a woman who also has a healthy appreciation for the arts. As a young student at the Mico Teachers' College, Smith was trained in speech by the legendary Alma Mock Yen and won several speech competitions while on campus.

In the early days of her teaching career she copped a silver medal for choreography in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's (JCDC's) festival of the performing arts.

However, her greatest artistic triumph to date is the founding of the Trench Town High School steel band, in 1993.
"We were the first school to really take up the steel band and from there others like Camperdown, Immaculate, Meadowbrook and Vaz Prep got on board," she says.

Smith also institutes lunchtime practice sessions for the band so the wider school community can hear the music. "The children love it. It removes the tension, it lifts, it energises, it's just great."

And the band has not only been a vehicle for Smith to give her students cultural exposure. She has also ensured that her young musicians use their talent to earn a living.

"A lot of those students are now able to teach steel pan," says Sandra Brown, a past student, who is now a teacher at Trench Town High. "Some of them are now working as musicians even in hotels on the North Coast."

The desire to equip her students for life has been the hallmark of Smith's tenure at the helm of Trench Town High. "She does things to expand their horizons and let them know that where they come from does not have to determine their destiny," Anderson says.

Smith's role model is the late Ethlyn Rodd, who was principal when Smith was a student at the Central Branch Primary School. "She really inspired me," Smith tells SunDay Lifestyle. "She was firm with her discipline, but she was loving and caring. I have tried to be like that in my own teaching career."

That career has now spanned more than three decades.
"I am not a person who moves around," she says. "I tend to stay with situations to see if my input will make changes and this is why I have stayed as long as I have at Trench Town. And even now, I wouldn't leave to go to another school, I will finish my service there."

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