27.2 C
Belize City
Thursday, March 28, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

Black Pearl and Mother Nature Creation are Carnival 2007’s junior and senior champions

GeneralBlack Pearl and Mother Nature Creation are Carnival 2007’s junior and senior champions
A total of 11 carnival groups, which included four junior bands and seven senior bands, featuring a total of over one thousand dancers, participated in the 2007 Carnival Road March, which ended at the Marion Jones Sports Complex shortly before 7:00 p.m. this past Saturday.
 
But the over five hours street “bram” ended in controversy shortly after 6:40 p.m. when the winners were announced live on radio. The master of ceremonies, Terry Gordon, had said that first place in the junior division was captured by Black Pearl, and that Southside Masqueraders was the #1 band for the senior section.
 
But Southside Masqueraders had to settle for second place, because Gordon then said that there was an error, and that the #1 senior band was, instead, Mother Nature Creation.
 
This shocking and sudden change did not go across well for many, especially for carnival participants who had already begun celebrating their victory.
 
According to Gordon, there was a “miscalculation.” He then apologized for the error and begged the audience to not be mad with him, because he was only the messenger.
 
Terry Gordon, nevertheless, was yelled at and cursed out by many carnival participants, who were very displeased.
 
But today, we learned that the controversy was as a result of a missing folder that was accidentally not forwarded to Gordon.
 
According to the Belize Carnival Association’s treasurer, Phillipa Duncan, the error was made because a folder used by the officials to write on while they did their scoring of the different bands, was unintentionally that of Mother Nature’s Creation Carnival band, and by the time the officials noticed that they still had Mother Nature’s Creation Carnival band folder, Gordon had already announced who he thought were the winners.     
 
Duncan told us that Gordon was instead given the folders for the 2nd Place winner, Southside Masqueraders; 3rd place winner, Jam Jam Mas Band; and 4th place Jump Street Posse, instead of the folders for the first, second and third place winners.
 
The Belize Carnival Association has scheduled a meeting for late this evening for all carnival bandleaders. At that meeting they will be given the opportunity to scrutinize the folders and to see where the error was made, showing that no points had been given or taken from any band.
 
In the junior division, third place was captured by Jump Street Posse and second place was won by Mahogany Masqueraders, managed by Nadia Avilez, who had walked away being 2006’s #1 band.
 
Our neighboring country, Guatemala, brought their band, Banda San Pedro Martin, from Poptun, Peten, which impressed the crowd with great music and excellent dancers. They were one of the entertainers, along with Succotz Festival Drum Corps.
 
Other participants included floats from the Belize Red Cross, who were displaying the Hurricane Dean relief plan that they had executed when Dean threatened Belize a month ago; First Caribbean International Bank, theme, “We open the doors of opportunity for all”, depicting some of the different cultures (ethnic groups) in Belize, including the Maya, Ketchi, Mestizo and Hindu cultures among others.
But the #1 float for this year seemed to be Travelers, who displayed its One Barrel liquor and had their favorite parrot to charm the crowd while they were giving away cups of drinks to the people.
 
Second place was captured by First Caribbean Band, followed by third place winner, National Library
Service.
 
All participants will be awarded a trophy at a ceremony, slated for sometime later this week.

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International