WESTERN BUREAU – Two centenarians, a high court judge and a university professor were among 12 people honoured by the Hanover Homecoming Foundation last Thursday night for their contributions to the parish.

The banquet honouring the 12 was held at the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort in Montego Bay.

Retired Nurse Hamutel Palmer, 105, and World War 1 veteran Stanley Stair, 104, received the Hanover Homecoming Foundation Centenarian Award, while High Court Judge Justice Seymour Panton received the Leadership Award, and Professor Kenneth Hall, principal of the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), received the Education Award.

Palmer was born in St Mary, but spent most of her years working in Hanover where she began working in 1948. She joined the Lucea Public Hospital (now Noel Holmes Hospital) in 1949 where she worked until 1962 when she retired. Palmer was, however, called from retirement by the Ministry of Health to serve at the Merryland Health Centre, where she served for 15 years. She later took up a three-year offer by the Ministry of Health to serve at the Hopewell Health Centre. Palmer is also a co-founder of the Merryland Seventh Day Adventist Church in Hanover.

Stair, the oldest resident of Animal Hill in the parish, played a role in the naming of his community. Based on the number of persons in that community with animal-sounding names such as Stairs, Hogg, Mair, Lyons and Wolves, he suggested that the community be named Animal Hill.

Another of the awardees, Professor Hall, attended the Rusea’s High School and later taught at the institution. He attended the UWI Mona and UWI St Agustine, then went on to the Queens University in Canada where he attained a Master of Arts and PHD in History. He was professor of history at the New York State University.

Justice Panton was a member of the Rusea’s debating team in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He worked in the courts for about a year after leaving Rusea’s before leaving for Lincoln State University in London to study law. He was called to the English Bar in 1968, but returned a year later to Jamaica.

Justice Panton was clerk of the courts in the parish of Portland, then served as acting crown counsel in the DPP’s Office. He then went to work in the Cayman Islands where he was legal assistant to the attorney-general in that country. Panton later returned to Jamaica and became a resident magistrate. He was appointed a Supreme Court judge in 1996 and in 1999 he was appointed to the Court of Appeal.

Panton’s former principal at Rusea’s High, attorney-at-law Eric Frater, received one of two Lifetime Achievement Awards for his contribution to education in the parish. Mento music extraordinaire Uriel Salmon also received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Des Wilson, Councillor for Nottingham City in England, received the Ambassador Award, which is given to a Hanoverian who has excelled internationally, while Dr Roy Streete, founder of the International Development Incorporated, received the Organisation Award.

Other recipients were:

. Lascelles Murray, former Hanover Member of Parliament;

. Enid Gonzalves, a social worker;

. Fred Williams, a police officer;

. Sydney Watson, Mento music extraordinaire.

Founder of the Hanover Homecoming Foundation Dawn Skeete said there were a number of persons who were born in the parish and had made significant contributions to Hanover, Jamaica and the wider world, but their contributions had gone unnoticed. It was against that background, she said, that the Hanover Homecoming Foundation had decided to highlight their contribution.