The line-up of potential Progressive Labour Party (PLP) candidates for the Sandys North (district 36) by-election on March 4 is impressive in its diversity.

They span the generations, classes and professions. Three of them are women, five are professionals with a high degree of formal education and two are civil servants who have decided to sacrifice well paying public sector jobs for elective office.

Together they have considerable experience in education, labour, sports and a range of social issues. Below a brief background synopsis of the parliamentary hopefuls.

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Eugenie Simmons, heads up the Bermuda College's department of Professional and Career Education and is a candidate for the College presidency. She has lived in the Somerset area most of her life and has been active in the Progressive Labour Party's (PLP) Sandys branch organisation in recent years.

Ms Simmons has also headed up community efforts in a range of social issues. She has served as chairperson of Sandys Against Drugs, been a member of the Treatment of Offenders Board and a volunteer teacher in the prison system. She has worked in education for all of her professional life except for a three-year period when she was the Chief Executive Officer of the National Drug Commission.

Her present memberships include the Kiwani Clubs of Sandys, St. James Church, the local chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the Black Alliance. She has a Bachelor's degree in Sociology, two Master's degree and is about to complete a doctorate in organisational Leadership in Adult and Higher Education.

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Dawn Simmons, a trainer at XL Insurance Company, has worked for the Sandys branch of the Progressive Labour Party.

She launched her political career when she returned to the Island from her studies abroad in 1982, quickly moving up the ranks from branch worker, secretary, chairperson of the Sandys branch and assistant secretary general for membership.

Mrs. Simmons has a nine year old son with her husband Glenn. Raised in Somerset she has been a branch co-chairperson for the last two elections, and is currently the Central Committee representative for Constituency 34, Sandys South Central. She is also a member of the Sandys Parish Council and vice-president of the West End Primary Parents Teachers Association.

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Melvin Simmons, 57, a career Civil Servant, is the Coordinator for Community Services at the Department of Court Services (formerly Probation Services). His 25 year career has been spent working on social issues and he and his wife Sharol, a social worker, have four children between them.

He has served on the board of Sandys Secondary School and is a former board member of Packwood Home. He also worked on the family business Simmons Ice Cream Factory, now under new ownership.

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David Burch served as Government Senate Leader and former Premier Jennifer Smith's aide-de-camp in the first Progressive Labour Party (PLP) administration, acted in various Ministerial capacities but made his mark as Minister of Housing.

A former Commanding Officer of the Bermuda Regiment, Col Burch spent 20 years in the military and worked in the international business sector as a reinsurance underwriting manager for some 14 years. He was educated at West End Primary, Southampton Glebe and Sandy's Secondary, Sandhurst Military Academy and The School of Infantry, Warminster.

His memberships include the Bermuda National Trust, The Royal Artillery Association and the Bermuda Sea Cadets Association.

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Michael Scott, 50, is the current Government Senate Leader and Minister of Legislative Affairs and makes a living as a lawyer. He has contested elections under the PLP banner since 1985. Senator Scott is a member of the Allen Temple AME Church in Sandys Parish and a member of the Allen Temple Senior Choir.

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Mark Bean, 29, is the youngest of the aspiring PLP candidates. He currently makes a living as a taxi driver, but is a qualified air traffic controller and commercial pilot.

Community service includes former coach of Somerset Eagles and former Captain of Somerset Bridge Cricket team, member of Somerset Bridge Recreation Club and currently functions as the Sports chairman.

A former junior tennis champion, he has played two seasons with Somerset Cricket Club and one season as a junior footballer with the Trojans.

Mr. Bean is also one of the founding members and past president of the Ethiopian World Federation (formed to mobilise moral and material support of Africans toward the cause of eradicating colonialism and imperial aggression). He was educated at Southampton Glebe Primary school, Berkeley Institute and Delaware State University, United States, Airline Transport Professionals in Atlanta and Hampton University, Virginia and Bailbrook College, Bath, England.

He has spent his entire life as a resident of Sandys, has two young children and is unmarried.

Rodney Smith, is a realtor. He contested by-elections in Pembroke West for the PLP in 1997 and 1998. In 2002 he put his name forward to contest the Pembroke East Central by-election to replace the late David Allen, but he lost the nomination to Ashfield DeVent.

Kenneth (Pop) Simmons, 45, is an refridgeration technician and shop steward at the King Edward Memorial Hospital and is former president of the Somerset Bridge Cricket Club, a member of Ambitious Associates a motivational organisation. Probably most widely known as a member of the singing quartet Euphonics. Mr. Simmons is the vice chairman of the party's district 34 branch organisation, was born and bred in the Hog Bay, Somerset area where he has lived all his life, and was well known as a cricket player in his youth.

He was educated at Southampton Glebe, Saltus, Sandys Secondary and Bermuda College, and is a member of the West End Primary Parent Teacher Association. He is married with one daughter and two step daughters, aged ten and 17.

Ellen-Kate Horton, 57, is currently an education officer responsible for the public school system's mathematics curriculum, and the team leader for the BEST (Bermuda Educational Strategic Team) programme in the Education Department.

She previously served as a teacher in the public school system for decades. A former president of the Bermuda Union of Teachers, vice-president of the Caribbean Union of Teachers.

Mrs Ellen-Kate Horton has represented Bermuda in international softball tournaments and was a member of Bermuda's only gold medal winning softball team which played in the Central American and Caribbean games.

Ms Horton has a Master's degree in Education, a Bachelors in chemistry and mathematics, and is currently a member of the Women and Sports Committee and the Ethics in Sports Committee. She is the mother of diver Katura Perinchief Horton, an Olympic hopeful, and coaches entry level diving.

Ms Horton lives on Boaz Island and represents district 36 on the Central Committee of the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) and has worked on several electoral campaigns for the PLP, including last summer's General Election.

Community service includes volunteering tutoring, cleanups in the Somerset area.