For some strange reason, humankind values brawn over brain. So a teenager who wins an Olympic gold medal can be named a national hero, but someone who has spent a lifetime working against all odds to raise the quality of life for thousands of compatriots, without the glare of publicity, could be virtually ignored.

Thankfully, the Jamaican Government has not ignored Dr Leila Theresa Thomas who has contributed over seven decades of professional and voluntary work in adult and literacy education that has helped countless Jamaicans to learn to read and write.

The question, however, will always be whether the award of the Order of Distinction – Officer Class (1973) and the Commander Class (1980) to Dr Thomas could ever be regarded as the full measure of her contribution to Jamaica’s development. We have, for example, awarded the much higher Order of Jamaica for sporting feat over a handful of years.

And yet we know that Leila Thomas, who left us on Sunday, January 2 in her 88th year, was never about being honoured or grabbing attention.

Ms Thomas has left her imprint on the literacy movement in Jamaica, through service to the Jamaica Library Service (JLS) and the Jamaica Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL) Foundation, now the Jamaica Foundation for Lifelong Learning (JFLL), and then as a volunteer with the Jamaican Council for Adult Education (JaCAE).

She was there with Dr Joyce Robinson, Dr Hazel Bennett, Ms Sybil Iton and Ms Gloria Salmon in the heady days of laying the foundation for a modern library service, first as a volunteer and later as head of the Jamaica Library Service (JLS) from 1975 to 1982.

Dr Thomas loved librarianship. As a volunteer she helped to establish the St Catherine Parish Library in 1949. While there she arranged the first Festival of Arts in that parish in 1950. Later that year she headed the organisation and administration of the main Manchester Parish Library and five branches.

Between 1954 and 1961 she did several library courses at the Regional Library School in Trinidad and Tobago and the Department of Libriarianship, Northwestern Polytechnic Institute in London. She became an Associate of the Library Association of the United Kingdom in 1956 and a Fellow five years later.

In 1957, she served as acting chief assistant (senior librarian) at the JLS headquarters in Kingston and in 1958 was appointed chief assistant (senior librarian). During this time, she was part of the Dr Joyce Robinson-led library team who was asked by Premier Norman Manley to host visiting British prime minister Harold MacMillan.

In 1960, Ms Thomas was appointed JLS acting deputy director; deputy director in 1967, acting director in 1973 and director in 1975. She moved from the JLS to JAMAL in 1982, and would be remembered for the big drop in illiteracy among Jamaicans, from 25 per cent to 18 per cent during her 10-year stint.

Among the many other organisations she has served are: UNESCO Jamaica, the Jamaica Library Association, the National Gallery, the National Book Development Council, the Soroptimist International and the Friends of the National Chest Hospital.

For a lifetime of work in adult learning, she was conferred with the Doctor of Humane Letters by the Nova Scotia-based Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada in 2001, the year she made Jamaica proud with her organisation of the Sixth World Assembly of the Internatonal Council for Adult Education.

Farewell Leila Theresa Thomas.