The pos­i­tive in­flu­ence of Dr An­na Ma­hase was not lim­it­ed to St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School (SAGHS), where she served as prin­ci­pal for 32 years.

The school was the main plat­form from which she made her in­deli­ble con­tri­bu­tions to T&T’s ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. Still, the gen­er­a­tions of cit­i­zens she men­tored and in­spired dur­ing her decades of pub­lic ser­vice were not lim­it­ed to the young women of SAGHS and ed­u­ca­tion was not the on­ly sphere from which Dr Ma­hase con­tributed to the ad­vance­ment of this na­tion.

How­ev­er, the many glow­ing trib­utes be­ing paid to this high­ly re­spect­ed ed­u­ca­tor, who died yes­ter­day at age 91, bare­ly scratch the sur­face of who Ma­hase was and the ex­tent of her lega­cy.

A look back at her long and fruit­ful life re­veals that ed­u­ca­tion was in her DNA. She was the daugh­ter of Ken­neth Ma­hase, a head­mas­ter, and An­na Ma­hase (Sr), who in 1918 was the first woman of East In­di­an de­scent to be­come a teacher in this coun­try.

Fol­low­ing her moth­er’s his­to­ry-mak­ing foot­steps, Dr Ma­hase grad­u­at­ed from Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School, San Fer­nan­do, and Mt Al­li­son Uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da. At age 28, she be­came the youngest-ever prin­ci­pal of a sec­ondary school in the Caribbean when she took the helm at SAGHS in 1961. She was al­so the school’s longest-serv­ing prin­ci­pal.

Dr Ma­hase’s in­flu­en­tial and en­dur­ing lead­er­ship is re­flect­ed in SAGHS’ un­par­al­leled track record of suc­cess, which has not been chal­lenged to this day.

The school pro­duces mul­ti­ple schol­ar­ship win­ners every year, plus sev­er­al non-aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments, and its grad­u­ates are count­ed among the top pro­fes­sion­als in a range of dis­ci­plines in this coun­try.

This can be at­trib­uted to Dr Ma­hase’s vi­sion­ary man­age­ment of the school and sev­er­al of the in­no­va­tions she in­tro­duced, in­clud­ing a wide range of ex­tra and co-cur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, a house sys­tem, mu­sic and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties.

Un­der her lead­er­ship, SAGHS be­came the first school to in­tro­duce a steel­band and, in 1962, it was the first to host Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

Dr Ma­hase want­ed to demon­strate to the stu­dents that Car­ni­val could be en­joyed in an at­mos­phere of dis­ci­pline and cre­ativ­i­ty, so on Car­ni­val Fri­days there was the ca­lyp­so and pa­rade of the bands.

Top ca­lyp­so­ni­ans were reg­u­lar­ly in­vit­ed to en­ter­tain the stu­dents and mem­bers of the Tacarigua Or­phan­age Band played at SAGHS and its sports day.

Even with these am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties for fun and games, Dr Ma­hase was al­so re­gard­ed by the hun­dreds of young women who passed through SAGHS as a stern dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an. With tough love, she in­stilled moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues in her young charges.

Many who in­ter­act­ed with Dr Ma­hase over the years, re­mem­ber her as a woman of great char­ac­ter and per­son­al­i­ty who was al­ways well-dressed and im­pec­ca­bly groomed, with a com­mand­ing pres­ence and who in­spired re­spect.

She served this coun­try well and her pur­suit of aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence ex­tend­ed be­yond her tenure at SAGHS to the many years when she shared her ex­per­tise as a mem­ber of the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

Dr Ma­hase al­so gave of her time as a mem­ber of the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil, pres­i­dent of the T&T Red Cross So­ci­ety and chair­man of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion on Ac­cred­i­ta­tion.

She al­so served as a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor (Tem­po­rary) dur­ing the 6th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment in 2001.

She was an ex­em­plary cit­i­zen, pa­tri­ot­ic to the core, and tru­ly de­serv­ing of the ho­n­ours and ac­co­lades she re­ceived through­out her long life.