Bassa High Alumni Gives Back To Alma Mater
Story by Nat Nyuan Bayjay - 11/30/09
Culled from Front Page Africa
Buchanan, Grand Bassa County -- The United States of America (USA)-based group of the Bassa High School Alumni Association has been involved in a series of giving-back initiatives to an institution that did so much for them—the latest being the donation of an asserted materials of printers, photo-copiers and other essential memo-graphic items.
Bassa High School, affectionately referred to as the ‘Tower of Light’ is the only public high school in Grand Bassa County, one of the three original counties of Liberia and was established in March, 1926. Situated in the county’s provincial capital, Buchanan, the institution has been involved in modeling the minds of hundreds of Bassa citizens and other Liberians who eventually became prominent in the Liberian society and the world at large.
During the school’s commencement convocations Sunday, November 29 held in its auditorium on Tubman Street, Buchanan, a total of three multi-purpose printers that also make photo-copies, 13 cartridges among others, including several stationary items were donated to the school amid cheers and jubilations from both the study body and faculty as well as staff of the school.
Estella K. Pailey, the liaison person and also a prominent citizen of Grand Bassa County who made the donation on behalf of Bassa High School Alumni Association said the kind gesture was the Association’s own way of identifying with the plight of the hundreds of students of the institution who have to pay fees for photo-copy and other related purposes.
Pailey then stressed on the donated items being used for the intended purposes and not to be sold or its services be provided for commercial activities.
“Let me emphasize here that these items should not be used for business; neither should students be made to pay for any of its services”, Pailey sounded as she presented them to the principal of the school, Vee Moillaho Sheriff, Sr.
Principal Sheriff in response promised that the much-needed items will be used for the intended intentions as he explained that students are always plagued by with the situation of spending money on photo-copying and other stationary items.
“I can assure you that Bassa High School is not a place for doing business with photo-copying machines and printers”, Sheriff reacted in response to Pailey’s caution.
According to Pailey, the recent donation from the Association is not the first of its kind. She told FrontPageAfrica in the Port City that the Association has been providing financial aids to both the students and teachers of the school.
Receipts exhibited to FPA show that sometimes in August of the year the Association provided US$1,300 to over a dozen students who fell under the categories of being the first and second duxes (valedictorians or high-honored students) and deserving students. This was further acknowledged by the school’s principal who said the Association has also been involved in aiding with the payments of teachers’ salaries.
The Association US-based comprises of alumni who left the walls of the Bassa High School ranging from as far back as four to three decades and recent years but who remain very committed to ensuring that they appreciate the institution they said they owe a lot to. The Association’s current president, Wilmond B. Howard, is a 1976 graduate while its vice president, Lucinda Nagbe, also graduated over two decades ago.
According to Pailey, the Association is poised to do more as she disclosed that there is container full of other asserted items already on its way to the Port City of Buchanan intended again for Bassa High School.
Meanwhile, the Bassa High School on Sunday, November 30 graduated a total of 91 students who were challenged to forge ahead in conquering the challenges of life.
Grand Bassa County Superintendent, Julia Duncan-Cassell, who is also a product of the institution, told the young graduating class that there is a need for a lot of them to consider pursuing the nursing and sciences careers which, according to her, the county desperately needs.
The occasion saw Superintendent Duncan-Cassell promising to offer scholarships to several students of the graduating class who have decided to do nursing and other medical related studies at the Tubman National Institute of Medical Arts (TNIMA) in Monrovia.
Grand Bassa County Junior Senator Nathaniel Innis, who also chairs the county’s legislative caucus, admonished members of the graduating class to not be complacent with high school education but to rather press on for the purpose to contributing to the development of the county.
With the awarding of high school diplomas to almost another batch of hundred students, many people are worried that they will just add up to the already large number of high school graduates who are sitting idly without any means of getting admitted into tertiary institutions which is a similar story for over half of the country’s leeward counties.
However, the only prospect and hope of the hundreds of youths Grand Bassa County is that the county will soon own a community college, though plans and progress towards the actualization of this dream have been very much frustrating as described by many of the Bassa citizens as ‘tortoise’s speed’
