Dear Editor,

I write concerning the brilliant academic performance of Justin Paris, an alumnus of Kingston College (KC) who was featured in this week’s Sunday Observer.

In the feature, Paris made a statement that brought me great joy, and I strongly endorse it: “A Fortis man is a sportsman, a scholar, and a gentleman, all at the same time.” This is in reference to the school’s motto: “ Fortis cadere cedere non potest,’ which, when translated from Latin to English, means ‘The brave may fall but never yield’.”

Hab massy! I intensely relate to this.

This total Fortis man, as portrayed by the superb writing, is sort of squeezing off all my triggers.

Congratulations, Justin, ‘mi joy come ovah’!

I wish that he could release his KC transcript. Yes, I repeat, his KC transcript as well as the transcript which was sent out to universities by George Washington Carver High School for the Sciences.

Especially at this time in Jamaica, that would be the tangy purple and white icing on this delicious slice of Justin Paris pastry.

By the way, still on the topic, surely the spirit of KC’s founding administrator Bishop Percival Gibson did possess the late administrators Douglas Forrest and Juliet Wilson and now speaketh loudly from the lips of KC’s living administrator Dave Myrie when, from his heart, in a ‘strange’ tongue for which some local high school principals will require an interpreter, he uttered the following:

“Kingston College is a school for poor people’s children. We give them opportunities that otherwise they would not have got. We take these students from these communities that others would’ve thought have no hope.”

Justin is such a burnished embodiment of this KC ethic.

Former Westwood Head Girl Shadee Morrison, Minister Fayval Williams, and, perhaps, all prior administrators of Westwood and I, in unison, shake our heads and mutter, “Amen, Principal Dave Myrie, more and more blessings upon KC.”

Fortis.

Dennis A Minott, PhD

a_quest57@yahoo.com