Friday August 28, 2009

A quartet of illustrious past students will be conferred with Distinguished Alumni Awards during the Excelsior Alumni Association’s 40th Anniversary Dinner Dance & Awards Gala October 10, 2009 at the Ramada Plaza at JFK in New York.  

These four - Owen Blakka Ellis, Dr. Marcia Livingston, Neville Myton and Dr. Maureen Samms-Vaughan - accomplished in a wide range of fields, and representing a diversity of backgrounds, were selected as exemplars of excellence, contributors, and as the embodiment of Founder Hon. Dr. A. Wesley Powell’s legendary  impatience with mediocrity. 

Dr.MarciaLivingston('80)will receive the President’s Distinguished Alumnus Award as recognition for academic excellence.    A Professor at Oral Roberts University, where she currently teaches fulltime, Dr. Livingston is also the coordinator of  the Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) program in the School of Education. She has over two decades of teaching experience, both at the K-12 and university levels, and is also an adjunct professor with St. Gregory and Phoenix universities. 

Neville Myton,OD,('65)Olympian,will be bestowed with the Distinguished Contribution Award for his seminal involvement & contribution in the field of sports and education. Myton, a former world junior record holder in the 800m was once referred to by The Jamaica Star as,“The greatest schoolboy middle distance runner ever and certainly the most dedicated schoolboy athlete of all time”.  In recognition of his unselfish contribution to his community and nation, particularly in the field of sports, Jamaica in October 2006 awarded him the Order of Distinction, Officer Class.

Owen Blakka Ellis ('77)is expected to be honored for excellence in the field of arts and for his sterling contribution to the Alma Mater and the various alumni chapters. He will be presented with the Distinguished Service Award.  In a career spanning almost three decades, the writer, educator and veteran comedic actor has created a font of goodwill throughout the Caribbean, earned numerous awards for his work in the theatre, and contributed to the growth and development of the Entertainment industry.

Dr.Maureen Samms-Vaughan('73)will round out the quartet and join Dr. Livingston as the second President Distinguished Alumnus Awardee. Dr. Maureen Samms-Vaughan distinguished herself in high school at Excelsior she was lauded for outstanding academic performance and voted class valedictorian. She pursued a career in pediatrics at UWI, Jamaica where the Pediatric Association of Jamaica recognized her as the most outstanding pediatric graduate (1988). In addition to her private practice, she lectures in the medical school on the campus of UWI, Mona in Jamaica.

The Excelsior Alumni Association, in its ongoing quest to spotlight those alumni who unstintingly contribute to the growth of the school and help to foster a positive reputation for the Alma Mater and the Alumni Association, will confer these special awards on these four worthy individuals as agents of change, who will be lauded by their peers in October.

About the Excelsior Alumni Association (USA), Inc.:

The Excelsior Alumni Association (USA) Inc, a 501(C)3 not-for-profit organization, founded in 1969, is the oldest and largest, continuously operating alumni chapter of Excelsior High School, located in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies. The mission of the Alumni Association, which is based in Brooklyn, New York, is to provide material and financial support to the Alma Mater. During its forty years of existence, the group has given exceptional and uninterrupted service to the school. It has also supported a number of charities based in the United States, along with pursuing its core mission of support to Excelsior High School.