Yvonne Webb

While the rhythm sec­tion kept a steady beat, Na­pari­ma Col­lege boys, in­struct­ed by a flag-wav­ing mas­cot, made Mex­i­can waves in the au­di­to­ri­um, chant­i­ng in in­ter­col-foot­ball style, "Na­pari­ma, we get the gold." Eu­pho­ria reigned when, for the fifth time since 1987, the school, through its ace stu­dent Mar­cus Isaac Be­las­co, copped the cov­et­ed Pres­i­dent's Gold Medal in the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tions (CAPE) 2012. Jensen Scheult, who is now study­ing med­i­cine, was the last Pres­i­dent's Medal win­ner, back in 2006.

Be­las­co, 18, of Palmiste, San Fer­nan­do, one of the two chil­dren of Boni­face and Pa­tri­cia, said he too had cho­sen med­i­cine as a ca­reer. He will take up the schol­ar­ship next year, ei­ther in Eng­land or Ire­land. Be­las­co has a younger sis­ter, Aman­da, who is a fifth-form stu­dent at St Joseph's Con­vent, San Fer­nan­do.

His elat­ed moth­er Pa­tri­cia said his de­ci­sion to be­come a doc­tor was made when he was just four years old, and his beloved grand­moth­er was di­ag­nosed with can­cer and sub­se­quent­ly died. His de­sire is to find a cure for can­cer. In an in­ter­view, at his al­ma mater, where he is an as­sis­tant teacher, Be­las­co said he in­tends to spe­cialise in neu­ro­surgery, which is gross­ly un­der­staffed to meet the de­mands in Trinidad and To­ba­go at the mo­ment.

"Be­cause the hu­man brain is the most in­ter­est­ing or­gan...It is mar­vel­lous how con­scious­ness can de­rive from it," he said about his prospec­tive ca­reer choice. At the im­promp­tu cel­e­bra­tion held in the school's au­di­to­ri­um last Fri­day, School Su­per­vi­sor III Zabeedah Ho­sein Abid was drowned out by the boys' thun­der­ous screams and ap­plause as she an­nounced the CAPE re­sults.

Be­las­co, the top-per­form­ing stu­dent in math­e­mat­ics, nat­ur­al sci­ences and en­vi­ron­men­tal stud­ies, was toast­ed by the en­tire school, led by prin­ci­pal Dr Michael Dowlat, who demon­strat­ed his tal­ent on one of the drums, and vice-prin­ci­pal Dev Go­sine, who ded­i­cat­ed Mon­day in ho­n­our of Be­las­co. Re­pub­lic Day, a pub­lic hol­i­day, was cel­e­brat­ed on Mon­day.

San Fer­nan­do may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali, a Na­pari­ma old boy, ex­pressed ela­tion at the his school's suc­cess, not on­ly in win­ning gold, but 29 schol­ar­ships all to­geth­er, in­clud­ing five Open. Mu­radali al­so rev­elled in the knowl­edge that the Vic­to­ria Ed­u­ca­tion­al Dis­trict had copped a third of the 372 schol­ar­ships award­ed, 21 Open and 102 ad­di­tion­al. Tak­ing the stage to ad­dress the stu­dents on be­half of the 29 schol­ar­ship win­ners, Be­las­co, de­clared Fri­day as a day of vic­to­ry.

"Not just a per­son­al vic­to­ry, but a vic­to­ry for our teach­ers, par­ents, stu­dents, li­brary and an­cil­lary staff. It is said that it takes a com­mu­ni­ty to raise a child, and this com­mu­ni­ty has done well," he said. He re­called that sev­en years ago when he and his peers walked in­to the hal­lowed halls of the col­lege on the hill, they knew lit­tle about ex­ams and CAPE, but Na­pari­ma trans­formed them in­to schol­ars and Pres­i­dent's Medal win­ners.

In an in­ter­view, Be­las­co said he was not aim­ing for the top award, but rather to mas­ter all of his aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits com­bined with his ex­tra-cur­ric­u­lar in­ter­ests. He praised his physics teacher, Dev Go­sine who, be­cause of his po­si­tion as vice prin­ci­pal, was not able to fin­ish the cur­ricu­lum dur­ing nor­mal school hours. He said Go­sine sac­ri­ficed three hours of his time every Sun­day for sev­er­al months, tu­tor­ing the en­tire class at his home, free of charge, right up un­til fi­nal ex­ams.

Go­sine in turn praised Be­las­co's self­less at­ti­tude and ap­proach to work. The teacher not­ed that in ad­di­tion to his aca­d­e­m­ic work, Be­las­co al­so rep­re­sent­ed the school in var­i­ous in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal com­pe­ti­tions, was pres­i­dent of the de­bat­ing club, In­ter­act Club, all the while serv­ing as deputy head pre­fect. "As pres­i­dent of the In­ter­act Club, he would or­gan­ise the oth­er boys, cook meals and dis­trib­ute to the home­less."

His proud prin­ci­pal al­so ap­plaud­ed his in­volve­ment in so many dif­fer­ent spheres while still be­ing able to ex­cel at his stud­ies. "Mar­cus is a true ex­am­ple of the Na­pari­ma Col­lege stu­dent that we are proud of. He said his schol­ar­ship was by-prod­uct of his mas­tery of his time man­age­ment of his aca­d­e­mics and his in­ter­ests. That is the kind of stu­dent we look for. Schol­ar­ship will come, but we want to de­vel­op well-round­ed use­ful cit­i­zens and he is an out­stand­ing ex­am­ple," Dowlat stat­ed.

His moth­er, who hugged and kissed him dur­ing the in­ter­view, at­trib­uted her son's suc­cess to "strong fam­i­ly val­ues, strong fam­i­ly uni­ty." She said from age two, he was fo­cused on ed­u­ca­tion, know­ing it was the key to im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of life of his gen­er­a­tion.