Holmwood girls to get Wall-of-Fame honour

Raymond Graham, Freelance Writer

JAMAICA'S MOST dominant high school team over the past 10 years at the Penn Relays, Holmwood Technical's girls, will have much to cheer about next weekend when they travel to the popular event.

The Maurice Wilson-coached 2001 4x400 metres quartet, of Kerrian Whyte, Karen Gayle, Aneisha McLaughlin and Sheryl Morgan, has been inducted into the Penn Relays Wall of Fame for their outstanding time of 3:34.75, which still stands as the fastest time by a female high school team at the championships.

Holmwood Technical will become the sixth Jamaican high school team to be given this honour.

Elated with recognition

Naturally, head coach of the Holmwood team, Wilson, was elated with his team's recognition.

"It is an unbelievable feeling as several of these ladies are not recognised," Wilson said. "Persons like Gayle, Whyte and Morgan are the people who built the Holm-wood programme and are not recognised like the Calverts and Sutherlands,'' he said.

Wilson said he was extremely pleased that people outside of the school community were able to recognise the achievements of the young women.

Vere Technical's 1991 mile-relay quartet of Charmaine Howell, Claudine Williams, Janice Turner and Inez Turner was the first Jamaican high school team to be recognised when they were inducted in 1995.

Two years later, it was the Camperdown's 4x100m relay team of Marie Taylor, Revoli Campbell, Helena Rochester and Andrea Lloyd that was recognised for its performance in 1989.

First local team

In 2003, Camperdown's star-studded 4x100m relay team of Derrick Thomas, Carey Johnson, Ralston Wright and Garfield Campbell became the first local high school male team to get that award for their record-breaking run in 1986.

The following year, another boys' team, St. Jago, was inducted as the 4x800m quartert of Carlton Allen, Mark Lucas, Eaton Evans and Michael Williams was rewarded for its fantastic run in 1990.

The same year, Vere Technical's female team was also rewarded as it became the only high school team to be inducted twice.

It received this recognition for its 1992 distance medley team which included Charlene Robinson, Avia Morgan, Evette Turner and Janice Turner.

Quartet honour

Former Camperdown honoree Carey Johnson and Ralston Wright will be recognised for the second time as they were part of Texas Christian University 1991 record-breaking 4x100m team which did 38.80 seconds.

The quartet, which included Americans Jon Drummond and Horatio Palmer, became the first college team to run sub-39 seconds and they held that record for 10 years.