For­mer St Mary's Col­lege stu­dent Run­cie Dook­er­an has been award­ed the US Navy and Ma­rine Corps Com­men­da­tion medal from the De­part­ment of the Navy. Dook­er­an, who left T&T in 2006 to join the US Navy, was cit­ed re­cent­ly for as­sist­ing in the treat­ment of over 1,400 marines and sailors, an ef­fort which yield­ed over US$50,000.

"While as­signed to Os­bourne Branch Den­tal Clin­ic, pet­ty of­fi­cer Dook­er­an dis­played the ini­tia­tive of a sea­soned of­fi­cer," stat­ed the ci­ta­tion. "He was se­lect­ed to work the front desk while main­tain­ing his pri­ma­ry du­ty as a chair side as­sis­tant and in­stant­ly be­came the recog­nised ex­pert in front desk pro­ce­dures. He quick­ly earned the po­si­tion of front desk ALPO through his su­pe­ri­or per­for­mance. He su­per­vised and trained vol­un­teers dur­ing dai­ly op­er­a­tions re­sult­ing in ex­cep­tion­al ser­vice for 100 pa­tients dai­ly while sup­port­ing the needs of 19 providers."

The ci­ta­tion con­tin­ued: "Dook­er­an's can/will do at­ti­tude and ex­cep­tion­al work eth­ic and gen­uine con­cern for the needs of his com­mand re­flect his nat­ur­al tal­ent as a true leader. His sus­tained su­pe­ri­or per­for­mance, cou­pled with his un­ques­tioned loy­al­ty and ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty are in­dica­tive of char­ac­ter traits nec­es­sary in to­day's Navy." Dook­er­an is the son of Bertram and the late Leela Dook­er­an of Mount Hope.