MALVERN, St Elizabeth — Former Education Minister Burchell Whiteman, former head of the Jamaica Defence Force Major General Robert Neish, and industrial research chemist Dr John Ewen were recently inducted into the Munro College Old Boys’ Association Hall of Fame for 2015.

Three others were inducted posthumously — Dr Louis Aston Marantz Simpson, war hero, poet and literature professor who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1964; Ronald George ‘Ron’ Sturdy, footballer, tennis player, pole vaulter, and war hero; and Albert A ‘Wagga’ Harrison, legendary headmaster at Munro in the early 20th century.

A release from the Munro Old Boys’ Association said Whiteman was honoured for his services to education as minister, headmaster of York Castle High School, and as founding principal of Brown’s Town Community College, plus services to politics and then diplomacy, in his former capacity as high commissioner to London.

Neish was inducted for service to the military as well as his subsequent work in philanthropy.

The release said Ewen was honoured for “his inventions and research in the field of metallocene catalysts, through which he has transformed the global plastics industry. Dr Ewen holds nearly 50 patents in plastics technology; was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993; and in 2002, for his global impact on the plastics industry, won the American National Medal of Technology, which is the highest possible award in that field in the United States”.

The release recalled that “the late Dr Louis Aston Marantz Simpson, celebrated poet and literature professor, earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts fighting for the United States in World War II before winning the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1964”.

After excelling as a sportsman and student at Munro, Sturdy won the 1936 Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he was decorated for football and tennis before being drafted to fight for Britain in World War II.

“He became the first Jamaican to be decorated in the war, earning the French Cross of War (Croix de Guerre), the highest French decoration for bravery. After completing his studies after the war, Sturdy came back to Jamaica to become a prominent lawyer, who also represented Jamaica in tennis”, the release said.

Harrison, as student, then teacher and headmaster, spent most of his life at Munro College, the news release said. He became the school’s first legendary headmaster, who established the school as a leading brand, it said.

“Known as a brilliant Mathematics teacher, as well as for a penchant for flogging, Harrison was one of the six headmasters who started the annual athletics championships known as ‘Champs’, and Munro literally became Munro under his watch, abandoning the German name Potsdam during the First World War. Harrison was also the custos of St Elizabeth, and reared horses for export to Panama,” the release said.

This was the fourth year of Hall of Fame inductees for the Senator Arthur Williams-led Old Boys’ Association, and those already inducted since 2012 are: Legendary Headmaster Richard B Roper; his right hand and legendary chemistry teacher, the late Vice-Principal Steve ‘Staggy’ Harle; High Mountain Coffee mogul and former Board and Trust Chairman John ‘Jackie’ Minott, CD; sporting legend and phenomenon, Lloyd ‘Lindy’ Delapenha; school founders Caleb Dickenson and Robert Hugh Munro; former Headmaster William Simms; Rhodes scholar and national Poet Laureate Professor Mervyn Morris, OM; late former Board Chairman Laurie Sharpe; national boxing and tennis administrator and indefatigable old boy, the late C Lloyd Allen; medical professor and former Trust Chairman, Professor Owen Morgan, OJ; business icon and philanthropist Anthony ‘Tony’ Hart, CD; his cousin, celebrated international lawyer and former government minister, Hugh Hart, OJ; former Prime Minister Sir Donald Sangster, ON; his cousin, former star athlete and celebrated educator, Dr Alfred Sangster, OJ; and corporate icon, William ‘Billy’ McConnell, OJ.