Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son and Leah So­rias

Mas­ter pan arranger and com­pos­er Len Boogsie Sharpe says he feels ho­n­oured by the Hum­ming­bird Medal Gold for cul­ture, which will be be­stowed on him tonight. "This award is not for me alone, but for the pan fra­ter­ni­ty and pan lovers," he said in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day. "Thanks to my fam­i­ly and chil­dren and the peo­ple of T&T," he added. St James-born Boogsie is one of T&T's most gift­ed tal­ents in the steel­band are­na. With 40 years-plus in the mu­sic in­dus­try, he has arranged for many ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, vo­cal­ists and steel­bands in T&T and the Caribbean, North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope, and has been com­pos­er/arranger at Phase II Pan Grove since the 1970s.

Va­lerie Al­leyne-Rawl­ins, Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it (Sil­ver)

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that nurs­es in most coun­tries are not giv­en the recog­ni­tion they de­serve, Va­lerie Al­leyne-Rawl­ins, pres­i­dent of the Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion, says she is hum­bled to re­ceive the Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it (Sil­ver). "I look for­ward to the event and to con­tin­u­ing to serve T&T and mo­ti­vat­ing peo­ple to care for oth­ers and them­selves." Al­leyne-Rawl­ins has been a nurse for the past 41 years. Apart from her lead­ing role in the as­so­ci­a­tion, she is a qual­i­ty man­age­ment con­sul­tant with the Min­istry of Health.

Archdea­con Dr Steve Ash­ley West, Cha­co­nia Medal (Sil­ver)

"I am very sur­prised. It was to­tal­ly un­ex­pect­ed." That was the re­sponse of Archdea­con Dr Steve Ash­ley West to the news that he is one of the re­cip­i­ents of the Cha­co­nia Medal Sil­ver at the In­de­pen­dence Awards at Pres­i­dent's House, tonight. West, a priest at Holy Sav­iour An­gli­can Church in Curepe, said he felt ho­n­oured to re­ceive such a pres­ti­gious award for which he was rec­om­mend­ed by a mem­ber of the church's youth min­istry. Al­so a teacher, West said al­though he per­formed both his teach­ing and priest­ly du­ties sep­a­rate­ly, both went hand-in-hand. "When I preach, I teach," he said.

He ex­plained that "teach­ing takes peo­ple from where they are to where you want them to go, and this al­so hap­pens when I preach."

In a very hum­ble tone, West re­count­ed his achieve­ments and ex­pe­ri­ences in ed­u­ca­tion, stat­ing that he be­lieved teach­ing was his gift. Emerg­ing from a sound spir­i­tu­al foun­da­tion from his moth­er, West said he was drawn to the priest­hood from since he was ten years old. West said he had been very suc­cess­ful in achiev­ing the two ti­tles be­cause he en­joyed what he did. He said teach­ers and ed­u­ca­tors must recog­nise how im­por­tant their jobs were and ad­vised them to strive to en­joy it. He rec­om­mend­ed that clin­i­cal su­per­vi­sion and mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems be im­ple­ment­ed in or­der to help teach­ers im­prove their craft.

Archdea­con Dr Steve Ash­ley West

Ed­u­ca­tion

�2 Grad­u­at­ed from Queen's Roy­al Col­lege:

�2 Diplo­ma in Ed­u­ca­tion

�2 BSc in Botany and Zo­ol­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty of West In­dies (UWI) in 1972.

�2 Mas­ter's in Agri­cul­ture and Ed­u­ca­tion at UWI,

�2 Com­plet­ed his PhD in Ed­u­ca­tion in 2007

Teach­ing ca­reer

�2 St Stephen's Col­lege, St Joseph's Con­vent, San Fer­nan­do, O and A-Lev­els, Bi­ol­o­gy and Zo­ol­o­gy, re­spec­tive­ly, Suc­cess Laven­tille,

�2 Lec­tur­er at UWI in Nat­ur­al Sci­ence and Ed­u­ca­tion and Corinth Teach­ers' Col­lege, tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er of sci­ence and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion;

�2 Cur­ricu­lum co-or­di­na­tor at Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences at Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex;

�2 Cur­ricu­lum ad­vis­er and as­sist­ed the board in es­tab­lish­ing Trin­i­ty Col­lege and Bish­op's Anstey East.

�2 Or­dained priest in 1985

�2 Ap­point­ed to Holy Sav­iour Church in Curepe in 1990

�2 Chap­lain at UWI, Mt Hope Com­plex and Hugh Wood­ing Law School

�2 Made canon in 2004

�2 Or­dained archdea­con in 2006.