March 18, 2008 – Ronald Lockhart, president of the St. Thomas-St. John Friends of Denmark, announced this week that the organization has selected Brandon Connor as its 2008 Student Ambassador. He will participate in the summer student exchange program with Denmark.
Connor, a senior at Charlotte Amalie High School, is a second lieutenant in the JROTC and is on the Moot Court Team. He has served as a Junior Statesman of America, a host of "Graffiti Street" and is a member of the Honor Society. He completed a project on the impact of Danish culture on the Virgin Islands in order to meet qualifications to be a student ambassador.
The Society will host two students, Lotte Dysted and Helle Kongsted, from Denmark on St. Thomas with the assistance of Brandon's mother, Jacquelyn Connor, from July 3-14. Following their stay on St. Thomas, the Danish student ambassadors will then be hosted on the island of St. Croix by the St. Croix Friends of Denmark. Then on July 23 Brandon and the student ambassador from St. Croix, Miguelina Valdes, and the two Danish students will travel together to Copenhagen. The V.I. students will be hosted by the Dysted and Kongsted families and by members of the Friends of the West Indies in Copenhagen and Jutland. Connor and Valdes will return home on August 13.
The mission of the student exchange program is to expand understanding of the relationship between Denmark and the U.S.V.I.
The exchange program was initiated last year with Amarae' Blyden-Richards as the first student ambassador from St. Thomas. Amarae' wrote, "The emotions invoked and history absorbed during this three-week cultural exchange are very hard to put into words. The mores exposed to as a result of my trip to Denmark left me with an insatiable hunger for more knowledge about my ancestry and bloodline."
