A HIGHLIGHT of the luncheon celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of Sandys Secondary School was the revelation by the principal, Melvin Bassett, that the late Dame Marjorie Bean, who began her teaching career at Sandys nearly 70 years ago, has left the school $80,000, in addition to cash yet to be realised from the future sale of certain stocks and bonds she held.

The luncheon at the Fairmont Southampton Princess Hotel served a dual purpose, firstly to highlight the humble beginnings of Sandys and its growth and development into the $18-million complex it now is; and secondly to formally launch the Sandys Beyond (the year) 2000 Project Community Sports Centre. The centre, estimated to cost $4 million, will be situated on the northeastern boundary of the school campus. It will embrace an Olympic-size swimming pool, a state-of-the-art fitness centre and a full- size gymnasium.

Keynote speaker at the luncheon was the man hailed as the most celebrated Sandys Secondary graduate, the Rt. Rev. Bishop Vinton R. Anderson, the internationally renowned theologian, philosopher, and church builder, who was elected to a seven-year term as president of the World Council of Churches. The Council embraces more than 319 communions worldwide.

At an earlier event Bishop Anderson recalled the enlightenment and inspiration he had received from Dame Marjorie, being the youngest student in her class when she was principal of Sandys. When the Bishop heard the revelation of Dame Marjorie's big bequest to the school, he quietly pulled out his chequebook, and became one of the first to contribute towards the Sandys Beyond Fund.

Whether or not his was a matching amount was not revealed by the chairman of the Sandys board, Khamisi Tokunbo. A Sandys graduate and now Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr. Tokunbo added to the joking back and forth that marked the launch of the fund-raising drive by the Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly, Walter Lister, and former Sandys principal Mansfield Brock. They are chairman and honorary chairman of the Beyond 2000 project. They implored the Sandys alumnae and friends to dig deep in pledging their support to the drive.

Melvin Bassett, MA, who is the first graduate to become principal, amused the luncheon guests with his recital of how his research into the school's history led him to 91-year-old Miss Hope Bascome, one of the two surviving members of the very first class in 1927.

He said he was blown away when she told him the person he ought be interviewing was her teacher, Mrs. Frances Ratteray, MBE. He spent considerable time interviewing the two, as well as the other survivor, Mrs. Miriam Webb, a former Warwick postmistress. The three nonagenarian ladies, who were seated at the same table, were presented bouquets by current students.

Acknowledgements and presentations were also made to the families of the late Leonard Simmons and William Rubain, founding members whose portraits will be hung in the school. Also to the family of the late Milton Lespere, who composed the school song. The luncheon programme opened with the spirited singing by the Sandys Middle School Choir of OHappy Day, and Joyful, Joyful. Directing the choir were Robert Edwards and Mrs. Victoria Saltus. Graduate Mrs. Oda Mallory was mistress of ceremonies while graduate Canon James Francis, Rector of Devonshire Parish Church, said the Prayer of Thanksgiving.

Other selections were by the Upper Room Quintet, mothers and grandmothers, who have continued to sing together since they were young girls at Sandys. Mrs. Ismay Philip, who served many years as an executive member of the Sandys Parents Association, sang The Impossible Dream, which is also known as The Quest.

It was, she said, a salute to Nurse Alice Scott and her small band of community activists who launched Sandys Secondary Association 75 years ago, on what must have seemed like an impossible dream, and now, 75 years later, the setting out on a new quest which is the dream of Beyond the Year 2000.

The launching of Sandys Secondary in 1927 filled a tremendous void in the education needs for black children in Bermuda. At the time there were three thriving high schools for white children, and only one for black people. That was the Berkeley Institute, which opened in 1897, 18 years after the Berkeley Educational Society began its struggle to bring the Institute into being.

The Somerset Oddfellows (who in 1902 had succeeded along with their counterparts in St. George's in inaugurating the Somerset v St. George's annual Cup Match) stepped up their efforts to launch the Sandys High School.

Prime movers among the Oddfellows were (the first) Dr. John Cann and John Scott. They secured the services of a Bachelor of Arts in Honours from Durham University in England (see Eva N. Hodgson's Second Class Citizens, First Class Men), and after three months of operation the school collapsed because of lack of funding and other reasons.

Scott meanwhile provided for the education of his children, and sent his daughter Alice to Lincoln Hospital and Home Nursing School in New York where she qualified in 1912 for a degree in nursing (see Heroines In the Medical Field of Bermuda by Ira Philip). She returned home and opened her own cottage nursing home. Black nurses and doctors then were not permitted to train or practise in the one and only, white-only Government-subsided civilian hospital.

Obsessed with the idea of making a reality of her father's dream for a high school, she succeeded with the help of others in starting Sandys Secondary in 1927. So determined she was to see that the school would not fail, she mortgaged her nursing home to pay teachers' salaries and rents.