VIEO Grant Provides Zero-Emission All-Electric Transit Vans Into VITRAN Fleet
Open Forum: Calling all Virgin Islanders for Help with a Class Project
Editor’s Note: The following is an open letter to the Virgin Islands community from Aryav, a third-grade student in Virginia.
Dear People of the Great State of the U.S. Virgin Islands,
Hello! I am a third-grade student in Northern Virginia. Our class is learning about the United States, and I will be teaching our school about the state of the U.S. Virgin Islands. In May, I will create a display for our State Fair that I hope will make you proud.
Although I have gathered facts about your state from books and websites, I think that I can receive the best information from the people who live there. This is why I am writing to you. I am hoping that you would be willing to send me some items to help me learn more about the best things in your state. You might consider sending items such as postcards, pictures, souvenirs, this newspaper article, or any other unique items that would be useful or show your state’s pride.
Here are a few questions:
– Why do you live in your state?/What first brought your family there? – How do you make money?/What is your job? – What does your state look like? – What do people do for fun? – What animals live there? – What traditional food/recipes does your state have? – What type of music is native to your state? – Do you have a state athletic team? – What geographic features are unique to your state?I will need to gather all of my information by the second week of May. You can mail items to the address below. I really appreciate your help!
Sincerely, Aryav
Miss Campbell’s Class The Langley School 1411 Balls Hill Road McLean, Virginia 22101 703-356-1920 www.langleyschool.org
Darren Antonio Smith Sr. Dies
Op-Ed: It is Beyond Time to Make St. Croix’s Maroon Country a Territorial Park
At the 52nd Virgin Islands Agrifest in February, I met a very good friend of mine, Sean Krigger, who is the director of the Virgin Islands State Historic Preservation Office. Whenever we see each other, we always chat about the territory’s natural and cultural resources. Believe me, it is in our blood as native Virgin Islanders. He told me that he found a file about the Great Northwest of St. Croix, Maroon Country. Of course, I got all excited because for 41 years I have been fighting socially and politically to preserve this area.
The next thing that occurred at the festival — I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not — was that I saw the director of the Virgin Islands Territorial Parks and Protected Areas, Kitty Edwards. With a big smile on her face, she said, “Olasee, did you have a copy or see the document about a proposal to create a ‘St. Croix regional park’ on the northwest side of the island?” I said no, but before I could mention Sean Krigger, who told me about the document, Kitty already said that she would email me a copy of the document.
In 1969 a study called “St. Croix Regional Park — A Proposal for a Unique Historic, Recreational and Natural Area Resource” — also known as “Skyline National Monument & Scenic Road” — was prepared for the late Laurance S. Rockefeller, written by George B. Hartzog Jr. and Thomas W. Richards. According to the document, “The purpose of this report is to inventory, analyze and describe the natural, scenic, recreation and historic resources of the Hams Bluff-Northside area of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.”
The study extended from the Hams Bluff watershed to Oxford Hill, Mount Stewart, Davis Bay, Mount Eagle, Fountain, Bodkin, and Estate Hermitage, which includes estates within Hermitage Valley. I was a boy when this analytical inventory took place. Believe me, this study goes back over a half century, from 1969 to 1973.
It is some 69 pages with maps, descriptions of estates and natural and cultural resources, topography, bird and plant lists, archeological sites, vegetation, zoning, soils, landscape, and boundaries of the proposed park, etc. The work of the late, great photographer Fritz Henley, who took black and white photos probably as far back as the 1940s to the 1960s, is also featured in the document that shows cultural and natural resources such as forest landscapes and historic ruins such as the Mount Victory 1841 country schoolhouse.
When I read the document that calls for land to be set aside as the people’s territorial park, I wanted to cry because we have dropped the ball repeatedly. The question comes to mind why the Northwest park didn’t happen over a half century ago?
I can only quote what the document says. “Its natural, historic, and recreational values should be preserved for the use and enjoyment of both the island’s indigenous inhabitants as well as visitors. The Hams Bluff, Davis Bay, Mount Victory complex (referred to as Northside) offers a rare opportunity to combine esthetic, economic, ecological, and historic values for the long-range public benefit,” noted the report.
I grew up in these beautiful islands hearing the term the “rape of the virgins” by adults, but never really fully understood what it meant until I got a little older. In my short life here on earth (according to the Bible the time clock for humans is “threescore and ten years” unless God extends our lives by living to a ripe, healthy old age), I have seen such rapid changes in the islands’ environments that sometimes even I feel like an outsider. Like I said before, I am only quoting what the document says: “It is all too common to hear the phrases — ‘rape of the virgins,’ ‘slash and burn culture,’ ‘environmental destruction,’ and ‘money-hungry developers.’”
The sentence continues to say, “There is now an opportunity in the Northside area of St. Croix to create a facility with a diversity of historic, natural and recreational features which will gain wide acceptance from both island residents, tourists, scientists, and businessmen alike.” It is for this reason and others that I continue to be like John the Baptist in the wilderness in Biblical times, preaching the word of preservation to protect the Northwest of St. Croix or any other cultural and natural treasure of these islands.
I consider the island of St. Croix to be the last frontier of the Virgin Islands. It is an island whose cultural and natural resources have not yet been fully discovered, especially by local people. An island where people can hold onto their landscapes and still have room to connect to nature. An island where historic ruins, colonial graves, slave gravesites, waterfalls, steep cliffs, rolling hills, mountaintops, etc., and the history of St. Croix play out in front of you.
The Northwest of St. Croix has such a rich history that spreads beyond its shores. William A. Leidesdorff was the son of a Dane and a Black mother named Anna Marie Sparks, a mulatto who was born on St. Croix. Leidesdorff (1810-1848) was born in the great Northwest on a plantation that his father Alexander purchased that he called “Spring Garden.” Estate Spring Garden is part of Maroon Country.
March is Virgin Islands History month, so search online for William A. Leidesdorff and learn about the positive impact he had on California in the latter part of the 1800s.
Believe me, Maroon Country is full of real-people stories like Leidesdorff’s — not “Mother Goose” stories or made-up stories. The sagas of “free slaves,” the enslaved, runaway slaves, and Maroons, to white planters and settlers all played out in the Northwest Quarter of St. Croix. The history can still be played out by you helping me and we helping each other together to preserve Maroon Country.
Take my word, whenever you hike Maroon Country, history comes alive by the ruins of the plantations, steep cliffs, and gravesites of slaves, and whites, and historic trees hundreds of years old. Let us not drop the ball as happened half a century ago. Let us all work together to protect Maroon Country in perpetuity. Let us make the Northwest the first Virgin Islands territorial park, the people’s park of these islands.
— Olasee Davis is a bush professor who lectures and writes about the culture, history, ecology and environment of the Virgin Islands when he is not leading hiking tours of the wild places and spaces of St. Croix and beyond.
Economic Development and Agriculture Committee Labors Through Non-Productive Hearings
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Hazardous Marine Conditions Expected for USVI and Puerto Rico Through End of the Week
- Relax. Rip currents don’t pull you under.
- A rip current is a natural treadmill that travels an average speed of one to two feet per second but has been measured as fast as eight feet per second — faster than an Olympic swimmer. Trying to swim against a rip current will only use up your energy — energy you need to survive and escape the rip current.
- Do NOT try to swim directly to shore. Swim along the shoreline until you escape the current’s pull. When free from the pull of the current, swim at an angle away from the current toward shore.
- If you feel you can’t reach the shore, relax, face the shore, and call or wave for help. Remember: If in doubt, don’t go out!
- If possible, only swim at beaches with lifeguards.
- If you choose to swim on beaches without a lifeguard, never swim alone. Take a friend who has a cell phone so that person can call 911 for help.
Jury Deliberations Begin in Drug Trafficking Retrial
A federal jury entered deliberations on Wednesday at the end of a three-day retrial for accused drug trafficker Russell Robinson. Robinson returned to the role he held in his first trial in June 2023, serving as his own defense attorney.
Wednesday morning proceedings began with the defendant taking the witness stand on his own behalf. He told a panel of jurors his side of the story of events taking place on Nov. 29, 2021.
That was the day that Robinson, along with former co-defendant Trevor Stephen and a third — unidentified — person, loaded seven duffel bags loaded with 210 kilograms of cocaine into a pickup truck. They then drove from Vessup Bay Beach to Hull Bay, leading law enforcement agents on a high-speed chase by land and by air.
Most of the incident was captured on surveillance images shot from a pursuing helicopter. Stephen was convicted at the end of the first trial in June. Robinson was granted a mistrial.
On Wednesday, Robinson said he became an unwilling participant in drug smuggling after Stephen talked him into lending his truck. As they drove along in the Frydenhoj area, the defendant said a third man entered the cab of the truck and pointed a gun at him.
The stranger directed him to do as he was told and he wouldn’t get hurt, Robinson said. All three men helped load the truck at the beach, got back into the cab and drove away. At one point in his testimony, the defendant said he turned into the yard of a friend who lived along the route and knocked on his door, asking for help.
Sometime later, before Robinson and Stephen drove through Long Bay towards Mafolie Hill, the gunman left the truck and disappeared.
Prosecutor Kyle Payne challenged the account, reminding Robinson that the friend whose house he stopped by testified in court on Tuesday. That witness described Robinson as “acting like a crazy man.”
As he left, the witness told the court that Robinson told him to “call the feds.”
Payne asked the defendant why he did not ask his friend to call 911 or why he did not stop the truck when he saw blue flashing lights following him when he got back on the road.
Robinson said he didn’t know who the people in the cars with the flashing lights were. Payne said they were the police.
But those are local police, Robinson said, and he didn’t trust them. Returning to his role as defense attorney, Robinson asked the court to include a jury instruction about committing a drug crime while under duress.
Chief District Judge Robert Molloy called a recess and returned to the courtroom with a ruling from the bench. “The court finds that Mr. Robinson is not entitled to a jury instruction on duress,” the judge said.
Although he had given an account of an encounter with a gunman and actions taken under apparent threat of harm, Molloy said Robinson offered no evidence to prove the things he said.
The defendant also failed to stop fleeing and turn himself into police once the gunman left the vehicle, something the judge said he was obliged to do under law.
The defense rested its case moments later. The prosecutor told the court he wanted to bring a few rebuttal witnesses back to the stand.
Closing arguments followed by mid-afternoon, followed by Molloy’s instructions to the jury. Deliberations began around 3:30 p.m.
Robinson is charged with conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.
