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From The Publisher

PublisherFrom The Publisher
A man died in Belmopan and was buried on Thursday, August 2, 2007. His full name was Ivan Leopold Gillett, Sr., and he was 62 years old. He had worked all his adult life at the Government Printers, which used to be on Church Street near to the Alberts in Belize City, but which moved to Belmopan, along with other government departments, in 1970.
 
Ivan Gillett married Ruby McFadzean 42 years ago, and raised a family of ten children. He was a family man who did his work quietly, and lived in obscurity. But, in his youth, this man had been a superstar in elocution at Belize City’s largest high school – St. John’s College. Ivan Gillett – he was something special.
 
In the early 1960’s, St. John’s College used to hand out gold medals for academics and elocution in school year-ending ceremonies. This was a practice which apparently fell by the wayside. My son-in-law began S.J.C. in the middle 1980’s, and he told me the days of gold medals had already ended.
 
The old Holy Redeemer Parish Hall, which was destroyed by Hurricane Hattie in October of 1961, used to be packed to capacity when those award ceremonies were held at the end of each school year.
 
To be truthful, I can’t remember much of the elocution contests themselves. But I can remember Ivan Gillett walking on the Parish Hall stage to do a poem called “Lochinvar“ one contest night. He was short, well-built and good looking. If he was ever nervous, it never showed. He ruled the stage, and dominated audiences. Elocution contests in which Ivan Gillett participated, were no contest at all. He was always the best, by far.
 
I don’t recall Ivan as ever being in my class of 1963, so I assume he must have been in the S.J.C. graduating class of 1964. But I lost track of Ivan, totally. He and I had never been friends. We just bid each other the time of the day. I cannot recall Ivan playing basketball, football or baseball. I didn’t know anything about Ivan Gillett, except that God had given him a very special gift. 
 
Returning to Belize in the summer of 1968 after college in the States, I eventually saw Ivan working at the Printers. It didn’t make sense. Ivan’s genius was as an orator. His gift was to excite and entertain huge audiences of people. But he toiled amongst those lead types and printing presses for decades, and he provided for his family. After S.J.C., Ivan Gillett, as far as I knew, was never again in the public’s eye.
 
The radio announcement that Ivan had died brought back memories to me, and sparked a lot of questions and speculations in my mind. In my mind, I immediately committed to writing a column about this uniquely gifted man, but the weeks began to go by. I knew little about Ivan except that he had been a superstar as a teenager.
 
Finally, this past Saturday morning I looked for Ivan’s name in the Belmopan telephone directory – no luck. Then I searched for his older brother’s name. Gerald Gillett is a taxi driver in Belize City. I was fortunate to find his name in the Belize City directory, and Gerald told me that Ivan’s widow was named Ruby. Gerald agreed to bring me a funeral program, in which the two pictures you see here were printed.
 
Mrs. Ruby Gillett told me that David Gibson, a former senior public officer, had given Ivan’s eulogy. I called David and asked him to e-mail the eulogy from Belmopan. That eulogy should be appearing elsewhere in this issue of Amandala.
 
Ever since I heard that Ivan had died, the question that has been going through my mind over and over is this: how could a man so gifted in a special area spend his life in relative oblivion doing something completely unrelated to his genius?  
 
But I don’t want to interfere in Ivan’s privacy. This is how he wanted to live his life, and I respect that. I am not going to pry and probe. And I’m not going to speculate publicly. I would welcome, however, any letters from his family members, friends, and fans who saw and heard him perform. To honor Ivan’s memory, this newspaper would publish any such material.
 
To repeat, Ivan Gillett was something special. May he rest in peace.

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