From The Publisher

For the school year of 1964/65, the administration of St. John’s College Sixth Form admitted some young ladies into the first year of its traditionally two-year “Advanced Level” studies. Most of the young ladies were high school graduates from St. Catherine Academy, but I also remember at least three girl students from the Cayo District.

    At that time the Sixth Form was physically comprised only of two one-flat ferro-concrete buildings, located on the far eastern side of the campus. The buildings had previously been used as residential dormitories for foreign students from the upper classes of Central and South America. These students were referred to as “internos.” (I don’t know when SJC began that program, but it had been ended by the time the 1964/65 school year began.) Amazingly, I can remember some names of internos — Oscar Elvir, Reynaldo Martorell, Jesus Canales, Edgar Escalante … 

    Immediately south of the buildings was the SJC football field, which was also used for baseball after Gene Adams, an American Peace Corps, began pushing baseball in Belize City high schools. 

    The southern of the buildings was used mostly for science laboratories, to the best of my recollection, whereas the northern building was where the academic classes were held. The small office of the new Sixth Form dean, Ronald Zinkle, S. J., was also housed there. There may have been a small library. I don’t remember.

    The young men from St. John’s College (the SJC high school class of ’63) had studied on the high school campus from January to May/June of 1964, if my memory is correct. So our first year of Sixth Form was really only a half year. To the best of my knowledge, we were the only Sixth Form class in British Honduras/ Belize history that did “A” Levels in a year and a half instead of the full two.

    The new dean, Zinkle, an American of Germanic stock from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was very proud of his new assignment. My sense was that the SJC president, Fr. Leo Weber, S. J., had given Zinkle the assignment with the intent for the new SJC Sixth Form to become a kind of flagship of tertiary education in self-governing Belize. And, the SJC Sixth Form did become a real leader. Many young men from prominent Protestant Belizean families who would normally have attended St. Michael’s College Sixth Form or Wesley College Sixth Form went north to SJC Sixth Form instead. (I don’t know when the Belize Technical College established its own Sixth Form, but I know BTC Sixth Form became very prominent and competitive in the 1970s.)

    Zinkle and I had issues, but I was not aware of his conflicts with some of the new girl students until many years after I had left the school. Zinkle was conscious of his power, and very hardline.

    None of the young ladies who ran afoul of Zinkle, so to speak, have ever spoken or written publicly about these clashes. A couple of them have recounted their experiences to me privately.

    Anyway, a couple of the Sixth Form ladies from that class have informed me of the death of Beverly Griffiths, nee Borden, in the United Kingdom recently. She had married a British army officer, but maintained her ties to Belize. Beverly was quite a lady, and we mourn her passing.

    There are several recent deaths we must note which have not been as widely publicized in the old capital as we Belizeans used to do in the old days of horse-drawn hearses. I wish to mention here Francis Acosta, Baxter Matthews, and two of our footballers from the 70s—Charro Bennett and Clarence “Willie” Williams.

   Willie was a Wesley College graduate who lived on Turton’s Lane down the street from me on Regent Street West. He starred as the central defender of the championship Landivar teams, and I wish to note here that he was a quiet man of dignity and strength.

    Respect is due, and given.