MONTEGO BAY, St James

Family and friends of veteran journalist and public relations consultant Byron Balfour, will say farewell to him tomorrow at a thanksgiving service at the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Montego Bay.

An hour-long musical tribute will precede the service which will start at 10:00 am. Interment will follow at Dovecot of St James.

Balfour, who battled diabetes for years, died last week of liver complications after a one-week hospitalisation at the Cornwall Regional Hospital.

He was 64.

Fellow journalists and friends have remembered him as a controversial hard-nosed, hard-hitting go-getter, but a consummate journalist.

He started his decades-long career as a trainee reporter at the Gleaner in Montego Bay after completing his secondary education at Cornwall College and later did stints as editor of the now defunct Beacon newspaper. He also reported for the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC).

Balfour also worked as a correspondent for international news agencies such as Reuters, Associated Press, National Enquirer and the United Press International and served as press secretary to then prime minister Edward Seaga in the 1980s and later as press attaché at the Jamaican High Commission in Canada.

He subsequently published a tourism guide, Passport to Montego Bay and at the time of his death operated Balfour Communications, providing public relations work for several politicians and business people. He also produced a weekly column on political affairs in the Western Mirror.