Trib­utes con­tin­ued to pour in fol­low­ing the death of vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Therese Mills, founder of the News­day, who passed away on New Year's Day, at the age of 85. Here are some more re­spons­es from those who worked with her. Her death has left a void at News­day, where she held the po­si­tions of ed­i­tor-in-chief, ex­ec­u­tive chair­man and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer. Her fu­ner­al will take place on Tues­day at 9.30 am at the Church of the Na­tiv­i­ty, Crys­tal Stream, Diego Mar­tin.

Lenny Grant, for­mer ed­i­tor-in-chief of Guardian and Ex­press news­pa­pers:

"The grande-dame fig­ure that Therese Mills rep­re­sent­ed had no equal in T&T jour­nal­ism or me­dia."The la­dy lived and worked by her own lights, and ran mat­ters in ac­cor­dance with her own wis­dom."We had time in com­mon at the Guardian, but such a re­spect­ful dis­tance was main­tained be­tween us, that we nev­er be­came ei­ther friends or en­e­mies.

"News­day re­flects the im­age and like­ness of Therese Mills' vi­sion or pre­scrip­tion for how to make a dif­fer­ence in T&T news­pa­pers."I can­not con­ceive of the pa­per with­out her guid­ing hand and in­spi­ra­tion, but we shall see."

Max­ie Cuffie, for­mer Sun­day Guardian ed­i­tor and cur­rent colum­nist for the T&T Guardian:

"Therese Mills ed­u­cat­ed a gen­er­a­tion of jour­nal­ists on what it means to be a re­porter. That will be her last­ing lega­cy."You could love or hate her ap­proach to jour­nal­ism or even do both at the same time, but once you worked with her, her in­flu­ence was dif­fi­cult to ig­nore. I am grate­ful for hav­ing had the plea­sure of work­ing with her and see­ing the pas­sion she brought to her work. RIP, Mrs Mills."

Ken Gor­don, chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and for­mer chair­man of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Net­work, pub­lish­ers of the Trinidad Ex­press:

"Mrs Therese Mills was a la­dy I knew for more than 40 years. She was some­one I learned to have a great deal of re­spect for as a jour­nal­ist and as a per­son. We worked on com­pet­i­tive sides as she was at the Trinidad Guardian and I was at the Ex­press. Long be­fore there was a call for top fe­male ex­ec­u­tives, she sim­ply did it. She made the grade by mer­it. She was an out­stand­ing jour­nal­ist in every re­spect. It is a great loss to the coun­try."

Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union:

"The Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union (BIG­WU) joins with the rest of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in ac­knowl­edg­ing the pass­ing of Therese Mills, vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and chair­man, CEO and ed­i­tor-in-chief of the News­day news­pa­pers of T&T."BIG­WU is the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty trade union rep­re­sent­ing the work­ers of Dai­ly News Ltd (News­day) and so would have had close con­tact with Mrs Mills in the pur­suance of ne­go­ti­a­tions and oth­er work­place-re­lat­ed is­sues rel­a­tive to its mem­bers.

"Whilst ac­knowl­edg­ing the some­times ad­ver­sar­i­al na­ture of the re­la­tion­ship in the cut and thrust of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing, the union al­so recog­nis­es her pi­o­neer­ing dri­ve in open­ing the way for many young fe­male jour­nal­ists es­pe­cial­ly to have more than just a dream of reach­ing high up in the ranks of the me­dia fra­ter­ni­ty.

"BIG­WU ex­tends its heart­felt con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of Mrs Mills at this time of mourn­ing but al­so as they cel­e­brate her many achieve­ments in the world of jour­nal­ism. Her con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of jour­nal­ism, the free press and by ex­ten­sion to the na­tion of T&T must al­ways be re­mem­bered."

Cit­i­zens for a Bet­ter T&T head Har­rack Bal­ram­s­ingh:

"She was an out­stand­ing jour­nal­ist who went on to be­come the first fe­male ed­i­tor and ed­i­tor-in-chief of a ma­jor dai­ly news­pa­per in Trinidad and To­ba­go at a time when lit­tle or no op­por­tu­ni­ty was giv­en to our women. To­day, we have women at the helm of the oth­er two ma­jor dai­ly news­pa­pers in the coun­try."Trinidad and To­ba­go has lost one of its finest daugh­ters. Mills' record over the years was a clear in­di­ca­tion that she took her pro­fes­sion very se­ri­ous­ly.

"She gained many friends for her out­stand­ing work as a jour­nal­ist but lost many as well. That's the price she paid as an in­di­vid­ual to en­sure that the me­dia was free and fair."She was a woman whose lessons led to great achieve­ments in her jour­nal­ism ca­reer...and she had con­tacts with all lev­els from diplo­mats, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to lo­cal cit­i­zens and dif­fer­ent busi­ness per­son­nel."Trinidad and To­ba­go owes Mills a huge debt of grat­i­tude."