Vet­er­an pan­nist Len “Boogsie” Sharpe and sto­ry­teller Paul Keens-Dou­glas added yet an­oth­er ac­com­plish­ment to their names yes­ter­day as the duo re­ceived hon­orary doc­tor­ates from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Dur­ing the vir­tu­al grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, pub­lic Or­a­tor Pro­fes­sor Chris­tine Car­ring­ton high­light­ed why these men re­ceived the ho­n­our for their re­spect­ed fields.

Sharpe was award­ed the Hon­orary Doc­tor of Let­ters for steel­pan com­po­si­tion, arrange­ment and per­for­mance.

Car­ring­ton de­scribed Sharpe, who start­ed his steel­band in 1972 Phase II Pan Groove, as some­one peo­ple from all over recog­nised for his craft.

“He has amazed au­di­ences on every con­ti­nent and each Car­ni­val sea­son, afi­ciona­dos from across the globe make the pil­grim­age to his pa­n­yard to ex­pe­ri­ence first-hand the mir­a­cle of his ge­nius,” she said.

She told the sto­ry about how the cul­tur­al icon’s tal­ent was iden­ti­fied by his par­ents from birth.

“His moth­er Grace claimed that his nick­name came when she held him up to get a view of Sym­phonettes prac­tis­ing, she ‘felt an an­gel pass’ and the an­gel said “Boogsie,” she told the grad­u­at­ing class.

And how even with ob­sta­cles he per­se­vered and to­day has arranged for at least 30 oth­er steel bands across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Much to the dis­tress of his cousin Ru­pert “Shad­ow” Nathaniel, leader of Sym­phonettes, ba­by Boogsie couldn’t be kept away. Boogsie would crawl in­to the pa­n­yard and at­tempt to tune the pans…un­do­ing all the work Ru­pert had done the day be­fore. Left to him, Boogsie’s ca­reer might have end­ed right there,” she said.

Chan­cel­lor Robert Bermudez then vir­tu­al­ly pre­sent­ed Sharpe with his Hon­orary Doc­tor­ate which was fol­lowed by a per­for­mance by the vet­er­an pan­nist.

Po­et and sto­ry­teller Paul Keens-Dou­glas al­so re­ceived Hon­orary Doc­tor of Let­ters for his con­tri­bu­tions to Cul­ture and the Arts.

De­scribed as one of the most tal­ent­ed and beloved po­ets and sto­ry­tellers in the re­gion, Keens-Dou­glas, in his per­for­mance, nar­rat­ed how he fol­lowed his dreams even with­out his par­ent’s ap­proval.

“One thing I can tell you to be a suc­cess in any­thing you do you must love it, you must have a pas­sion for it,” he said.

The sto­ry­teller said when grow­ing up par­ents did not sup­port their chil­dren be­com­ing co­me­di­ans or comics but in­stead lawyers and doc­tors.

“Any­thing with “er” is al­right so I be­came to sto­ry­teller and here I am,” he said.

“No moth­er want­ed to in­tro­duce her son like this, meet my son the clown,” he added.

Born in Trinidad to Grena­di­an par­ents but spent most of his ear­ly life in Grena­da Keens-Dou­glas was de­scribed as a qui­et child but fell in love with the stage from an ear­ly age.

In the 70’s he start­ed com­plet­ed two years of grad­u­ate study at Mona be­fore trans­fer­ring to our St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, but in 1975 the sto­ry­teller tried his hand in writ­ing di­alect with Tan­ti at the Oval. His ca­reer took off and he nev­er fin­ished the de­gree.

But fast for­ward to 45 years lat­er Keens-Dou­glas re­ceived an hon­orary doc­tor­ate from the same uni­ver­si­ty.

For his grad­u­a­tion per­for­mance, the sto­ry­teller said through his years of work, com­mu­ni­ca­tion is one of the re­gions biggest prob­lems but two things brought kept the Caribbean to­geth­er, the UWI and the Windies crick­et team. His po­em was ti­tled, Mas­ter Bats­man.

Yes­ter­day was the grad­u­a­tion for Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences and was the fi­nal cer­e­mo­ny of the 2020 class.