On what would have been his 91st birthday, the late Gov. Cyril E. King was honored by the Independent Citizens Movement Saturday morning in a wreath-laying ceremony at the airport bearing his name.
While King looked on silently from his bronze image, a procession of Boy Scouts solemnly placed wreath after wreath in front of the memorial.
The second elected governor of the Virgin Islands, King lost a battle with cancer in 1978, just shy of completing his first term. An enormously popular governor, King was remembered by the community from members of other political persuasions, as well as those with no political ties, for the good he did in his community.
Speaking for Don Mills, interim director of the V.I. Port Authority Dale Gregory, director of engineering, spoke of King’s vision in his fight to keep the airport at its present location. There had been a movement to relocate it to the East End lagoon. After years of grappling over the issue, King made the final decision.
Construction on the new airport began in 1980, complete with a runway expanded from 4,200 feet to 7,000 feet, and the destruction of the former Harry S. Truman Quonset hut hangar, looked on fondly by some old-timers, but hardly in keeping with the demands of a modern tourism industry.
King was lauded as a no-nonsense politician. Elaborating on that theme, Master of Ceremonies Liston Davis, a former education commissioner. recalled a morning driving with King on Main Street.
"It was littered with trash," Davis said. "We drove to Government House, and he asked me to find who was in charge of keeping the streets clean. He called the person, who asked him ‘do you mean litter or garbage?’ King told him to have the street cleaned within the hour, ‘or you will be litter or garbage.’"
Though tributes abounded from the political community, perhaps the most moving came from Nevron "Imani" DeCastro, former president of the UJAMAA organic garden, and current member of the Bordeaux cooperative We Grow Food Inc.
"Follow the Light," DeCastro said. "And you shall find the truth. We believed in Governor King because he spoke the truth. He believed in agriculture in the islands. He would come to the farmers to see what we were doing. One day he noticed our tools, old and broken. He looked at them, and said ‘you can’t work with tools like that.’ The next day, not weeks or months later, a truck came with a load of new tools. If he were alive today, agriculture would be a priority. He saw the value of home-grown food, healthy food. He was our champion."
Reverend Wesley Williams Jr. of the Episcopalian Diocese said he would speak of a place far away, Washington, D.C., where he served as legal counsel on the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia in the late sixties.
"Cyril King was a rarity," Williams said. "In those days, you could count one hand the blacks in the Senate. My wife, Karen Hastie Williams, and I were beneficiaries of King’s trail blazing where he had served for 12 years as an aide to Sen. Hubert Humphrey."
Businesswoman Dorene Carle, a 48 year resident of St. Thomas, was effusive in her praise of the former governor. "He was the best governor we have ever had, the very best," she said while watching the Boy Scouts as they proceeded down the street.
"He really cared about the community and he implemented his ideas," she said. "Look at what he did for the agricultural community. He really was behind getting land for our farmers, supporting healthy food. If he were still alive, I think we’d have a better agricultural community today."
The ceremony wound up with a hearty burst of song from the All Saints Cathedral Gospel Choir, led by Williams. Their voices drowned out the passing traffic as they sang "This Light of Mine, I’m going to let it shine," joined by the entire audience.
