VETERAN journalist, broadcaster and musical composer, Clyde Hoyte, who made Jamaica his home 64 years ago, died in the University Hospital on Friday. He was 88.

The cause of death was not divulged to the Sunday Observer.

Described as a walking encyclopedia, Hoyte, who migrated to Jamaica from Guyana, is credited as having read the first radio newscast heard on Jamaica’s first radio station, ZQI on June 3, 1940. He came to Jamaica in 1939 on the invitation of The Gleaner after working in Guyana with the Guyana Chronicle newspaper as a journalist and broadcaster, and pioneered radio news broadcasting in the English-speaking Caribbean.

In 1949, while at The Gleaner, he was made the first Western Bureau manager, and up to his death he was still contributing articles to that newspaper.

Hoyte was also credited with publishing the first children’s newspaper, The Young Jamaican. He later worked at the Jamaica Information Service in radio and television.

With a new Constitution around Adult Suffrage in 1944, Hoyte was contracted by the Jamaican Government to write a booklet, The New Constitution Simply Explained, which outlined how the system of ministers-in-embryo would prepare the country for full ministerial system. This booklet was distributed throughout Jamaica.

He has written biographies of National Hero Norman Manley, the late Jamaica Agricultural Society president, Willie Henry, and leading Jamaican tenor, Jimmy Tucker.

A co-founder of the Jamaica Junior Chamber in 1949, he launched the movement in Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Grenada and Antigua & Barbuda.

As a musician, Hoyte has penned numerous patriotic songs, parodies, hymns, jingles, mento tunes, as well as classical pieces which are sung in schools and churches. He also wrote Jamaica Calling, made popular by Keith Stewart.

In his latter years, Hoyte’s voice was reduced to a whisper. But he remained alert and intellectually interested in national development and organisations like the Press Association of Jamaica, which honoured him as a veteran journalist, keeping in touch through good friends like Beverley Hamilton. He was recently honoured by a collection of musicians who performed many of his musical works at a benefit concert.

Clyde Hoyte is survived by a daughter, Audrey, and many friends and admirers. Close family friend, Rosina Moder, said a celebration of his life in the form of a concert was being planned. His body will be cremated at a later date, she said.