Final curtain call

The year 2021 was a tough one in all respects – from COVID-19 spikes, lockdowns, ashfall, freak storms and the first hurricane in over 50 years to sad goodbyes.

Over the course of this very difficult year, 260 lives were lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the Delta variant took hold of the country.

The country also said goodbye to some big personalities, one of whom was Sir Charles Othneil Williams.

On Friday, November 19, 2021, the outspoken construction magnate whose pioneer road-building, housing and farming developments dominated the Barbadian landscape, died at age 88 at the Bayview Hospital.

Sir Charles rose from humble origins to become the nation’s largest private owner of the land and the founder of C.O Williams Construction.

Educated at The Lodge School, Sir Charles built the Williams Group of Companies with his younger brother, Ralph Bizzy Williams, which pioneered construction, mining, dairy farming, horticulture, agriculture, housing, electrical contracting, and more.

There were some deaths that sparked a national outcry. Among them was the May 22 shooting death of Sergeant Newton Lewis.

Lewis, 46, was shot while responding to an attempted robbery in his neighbourhood of Rose Hill, St Peter.

Two other deaths rocked the country – those of a mother and daughter who perished in a house fire.

Janice Mitchell and her daughter Keisha Mitchell died from injuries they sustained in a fire at their Chapman Lane, Bridgetown home on July 10, under suspicious circumstances.

This year, the media fraternity, and the Starcom Network family, in particular, lost two veterans in quick succession – Dennis Johnson and DJ Warren ‘Jon Doe’ Forte.

Johnson, a father of three who died at his home in November at the age of 64, was a senior producer and moderator of Voice of Barbados’ Down to Brass tacks call-in programme.

He had been public about his battle with myasthenia gravis, a chronic, progressive disorder of the immune system in which antibodies destroy the communication between nerves and muscles. The illness affects voluntary movement, especially control of eyes, mouth, throat and limbs and, in rare cases, leads to death.

Days later, HOTT 95.3 FM’s Jon Doe passed away at the age of 46. He collapsed suddenly at the Starcom Network studios and efforts by paramedics and doctors to revive him were unsuccessful.

Forte, a past student of Harrison College, was trained in finance, a field in which he worked before joining Starcom Network in 1999. He was a programme assistant and supervisor at HOTT 95.3 FM at the time of his death.
kobiebroomes@barbadostoday.bb