JAMAICA | Cornwall College Ushers ‘The Governor’ and Three Fellow Men of Might into Its Hall of Fame

Veteran publisher and former Deputy Speaker Lloyd B. Smith, tourism and entertainment stalwart Johnny Gourzong, OD, Donald Daley and Desmond Flowers will be inducted into the Cornwall College Old Boys Association Hall of Fame on October 17, each also receiving a 2026 Men of Might Award.

MONTEGO BAY, St James, October 2, 2026 - Calvin G Brown | For 130 years, the boys of the ‘school on the hill beside the sea’ have lived proudly under two codes. One is carved into the crest: Disce Aut Discede — Learn or Leave. The other is never written down at all: an unacknowledged ‘CC brotherhood’ that follows Cornwallians long after they pass through the gates. 

Ask around, and many an Old Boy will regale you with tales of a school sitting just up the road from that house of leisure, the infamous Royal Palm, a neighbour that tested more than one schoolboy’s devotion to the first half of the motto. 

This month, four old boys who have honoured both will be celebrated by the brotherhood that made them.

The Cornwall College Old Boys Association (CCOBA) will induct four alumni into its Hall of Fame at the 2026 Men of Might Dinner & Awards on Saturday, October 17: veteran journalist, businessman and former Member of Parliament Lloyd B. Smith, OD; tourism and entertainment executive Johnny Gourzong, OD; Donald Daley; and Desmond Flowers.

Each will also receive a Men of Might Award, recognising contributions the Association says have brought honour to the school.

“These men embody our motto, Disce Aut Discede – Learn or Leave. They have learned, they have led, and they have lifted others.” — Stephen Jennings, CCOBA President

The formal plated dinner, staged under a Red & Gold, black-tie-optional theme, begins at 7:00 p.m. at Moya’s & Bros Eatery Events & Entertainment, 16 Godfrey Dyer Boulevard, Montego Bay.

The Governor takes his seat

Few people in western Jamaica need an introduction to Lloyd Barnes Smith, and fewer still would risk attempting one in his presence. Known across the city simply as “The Governor” of Montego Bay, he has spent more than half a century as its most persistent, and frequently most provocative, public voice.

His story begins in Mount Salem, where he arrived 15 minutes behind his twin brother, Joseph. After Montego Bay Infant School and the Montego Bay Boys’ School, now Corinaldi Primary, came Cornwall, then a career in the classroom.

Posted to Kingston Senior School in one of the capital’s toughest communities, he rose to headmaster while moonlighting as a Gleaner stringer, sending feature articles to the late Barbara Gloudon.

A vacancy at the Jamaica Teachers’ Association-owned Teachers Book Centre brought him back west, and set up the fight that would define him: the struggle to save The Beacon newspaper, which re-emerged as The Western Mirror, publishing its first edition under his editorship on October 4, 1980.

The paper turns 46 this Sunday, a fortnight before the dinner. Last October, Smith marked twin milestones, 50 years in journalism and 45 as the Mirror’s founder, at a gathering where colleagues credited him with mentoring scores of reporters who learned the trade under his eye.

Journalism was only one stage. Smith has served as President of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, represented the newly created St James Central constituency in Parliament and served as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.

He is also an Actor Boy Award-winning actor, by his own account the only western Jamaican to claim that prize, and has long used the distinction to lament the city’s lack of a proper theatre. His Hall of Fame citation recognises more than five decades of service to journalism, business and community development.

The man behind the music

If Smith is Montego Bay’s loudest voice, Johnny Gourzong, OD, has been one of its busiest hands. He began in banking at the Workers Bank, moving from credit officer to relief manager and eventually branch manager in Montego Bay and Savanna-la-Mar.

Since 1985 he has been Managing Director of River Raft Limited, operators of Rafting on the Martha Brae and the Jamaica Swamp Safari Village.

For many Jamaicans, though, his name is synonymous with July in the Second City. From 1993 to 2015 Gourzong was Executive Director of Summerfest Productions, the company behind Reggae Sumfest, and he stayed on as Chief Operating Officer and a director when Downsound Entertainment took over the festival in 2016.

Along the way he helped found the Association of Jamaica Attractions Limited, which he led as president for nine years, chaired Montego Freeport Limited, and served as First Vice-President of the National Cruise Council and Deputy Chairman of the River Rafting Authority.

Loyalty that pays it forward

Donald Daley represents a different, quieter kind of might: the old boy who keeps coming home. A member of the Class of 1971, Daley stood in the school chapel in August 2023 to present, on his classmates’ behalf, a $1.5-million cheque funding four scholarships in memory of fallen brethren Brian Hewling, Leroy Johnson, Getachew Marsie-Hazen and Colin Frankson.

Desmond Flowers completes this year’s class of inductees. The Association has not yet published his citation, but his name now joins a Men of Might roll that, in recent years, has included Observer founding editor Desmond Allen, security executive Ralston Pessoa, crooner AJ Brown, fertility specialist Dr Vernon DaCosta and philanthropist Roy Ten-Fah.

Why it matters

Founded in 1896 as the Montego Bay Government Secondary School and renamed Cornwall College in 1922, the institution has long been one of western Jamaica’s great talent engines. Its old boys’ network, with chapters stretching from Kingston to New York, has quietly underwritten scholarships, buildings and mentorship for generations of boys who will never meet their benefactors.

At a time when western Jamaica is still counting the cost of Hurricane Melissa, and when public conversation about Montego Bay too often begins and ends with crime statistics, an evening devoted to men who stayed, built and gave back carries a weight beyond the dinner plates.

Disce Aut Discede, the motto says. On October 17, Cornwall will toast four men who learned, and never really left.

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