Who's who of Belize
Wilfred Peters
Brukdown music reflects the journey of the African slave into the mahogany camps of Belize. It uses syncopated rhythms and call & response patterns firmly rooted in Africa, harmonies borrowed from Europe and lyrical themes colored with the Belizean Creole language & experience. Brukdown became the music of the people, whether urban or rural.
As one of the few remaining Brukdown accordion masters, Mr. Peters learned to play the instrument from his father on the family farm near the Sibun River in Belize, where music was the main form of entertainment in his household and when farmers and loggers gathered.
"We had no radios or cassettes then, only what we could play … and with some white rum and wata, people would dance through the night," Mr. Peters said.
Performing with accordian and guitar since the age of seven, his reputation grew, and by his early teens he found himself in demand throughout Belize. His popularity never waned, and he and his band continue to be a steady fixture at dances, holiday celebrations and events around Belize.
Now , at 70 years of age, Mr. Peters also continues to tour major music festivals in Mexico, France, Spain, the Caribbean and North America.
As a tireless bandleader, Mr. Peters has over the years refined the Boom & Chime Band into what is undoubtedly the most recognizable and dynamic representation of Belizean Creole culture.
George Cadle Price Prime Minister of Belize
George Cadle Price (born January 15, 1919) was the first Prime Minister of Belize and is considered the architect of that country's independence. Born in Belize City, he entered politics in 1947 with his election to the Belize City Council. Three years later, on September 29, 1950, he cofounded the People's United Party, which he led for four decades and which was devoted to the political and economic independence of the British colony, then known as British Honduras.
Price was never educated further than St. John's College High School (SJC did not have a sixth form until the 1960's.) While there, however, he was exposed to the teachings of Catholic social justice, in particular the encyclical Rerum Novarum. Upon graduation Price attached himself to local business man Robert Turton as his private secretary. He also rallied a few SJC graduates, some of them later members of the PUP, to contest elections in 1944 and 1947 for the local Town Board, being successful in 1947. Price also contributed to the Belize Billboard, then run by Phillip Goldson.
Price, upon the formation of the PC in 1950, was named its Assistant Secretary, and in a famous speech later that year claimed that "National Unity" propelled the PC's actions. With the formation of the PUP Price's stature rose and he ascended through the party ranks until he became leader following a dispute in 1956.
Elected to the colony's Legislative Council in 1954, he also served as mayor of Belize City from 1956 to 1962. In 1956 became also leader of the PUP. As First Minister, a post he held since 1961, he led the team which began negotiations over independence with Great Britain. He maintained that post as premier in 1964.
In 1981 Belize gained its independence, and Price served as the country's first prime minister and foreign minister until 1984. After the PUP's defeat in the elections by the United Democratic Party under Manuel Esquivel, he resumed the post of prime minister in 1989, serving until 1993, when he was again replaced by Esquivel.
In 1982, Price became a member of the United Kingdom's Privy Council. In October of 1996 he announced his resignation as party leader, and on November 10, 1996 was formally succeeded by Said Musa.
In September 2000, Price became the first person to receive Belize's highest honor, the Order of National Hero, for the prominent role he played in leading his country to independence. He has received similar honors in other Caribbean and Central American countries. See also: List of Prime Ministers of Belize
Robert Turton
Dr. Manuel Esquivel (born 2 May 1940) is a Belizean politician. As leader of the United Democratic Party, he served as Prime Minister from 1984 to 1989, and then again from 1993 to 1998.
Esquivel, born in Belize City when it was still the colony's capital, studied a Bachelor of Science in physics at Loyola University New Orleans; he subsequently pursued post-graduate studies into physics at Bristol University, England.
He was appointed to Her Majesty's Privy Council by Queen Elizabeth II. This life-time appointment confers the title "Right Honourable". He also holds an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Loyola University.
Esquivel is married to wife Kathleen (Kathy), with three children. Daughter Laura has followed in her father's footsteps as City Councillor under the UDP since March 2006.
Said Musa was born in San Ignacio of Palestinian descent. He was the fourth of eight children by Hamid and Aurora Musa.
As a boy, Musa attended Saint Andrew's Primary School in San Ignacio. He then attended high school at St. Michael's College in Belize City and later St. John's College Sixth Form. He then studied law at the University of Manchester in England, receiving an Honours Degree in Law in 1966. He returned to Belize the following year, serving as crown counsel and then going into private practice.
He joined the People's United Party (PUP) under George Cadle Price and was elected to the first independent Belizean National Assembly in 1979 from Fort George constituency. He served as Attorney General and Minister for Economic Development from 1979 to 1984 and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Education from 1989 to 1993. In the first years of independence, Musa served on the committee that wrote the Belizean Constitution. Said Musa took over leadership of the PUP in 1996 and led the party to victory in elections in 1998 and 2003.
Musa has led the nation of Belize to significant growth over his near-decade long term in office, but his popularity has declined severely in recent years due to increasing perceptions of corruption among his Cabinet and within his party. Most recently such charges included attempts to use public funds to buy a local tertiary care hospital unable to pay its debts. Outside of Belize, Musa has chaired several regional organizations including CARICOM.
Musa is married to Joan Musa. Son Yasser is a respected artist, poet and entertainer in Belize and currently heads its arts council, the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH) in addition to serving as chief of public relations for the PUP. Another son, Kareem, recently returned to Belize with a law degree and has taken on a number of prominent cases recently.
He also has two other sons, Mark Musa (a doctor in England) and Said Musa Jr.(a graduate of USF with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration).
Philip Stanley Wilberforce Goldson (July 25, 1923-October 3, 2001) was a Belizean newspaper editor, activist and politician. He served in the House of Representatives of Belize as member for the Albert Division from 1961 to 1998 and twice as a Minister. He was a founding member of the People's United Party (PUP), National Independence Party (NIP), United Democratic Party (UDP) and National Alliance for Belizean Rights (NABR).
Goldson was born in Belize City to Peter Edward Goldson and Florence Babb and attended St. John's College High School, graduating in 1939. For much of the early 1940's he participated in the Open Forum movement featuring fellow SJC graduates George Price and Leigh Richardson as well as older activists such as Clifford Betson and Antonio Soberanis. But his main job was as editor of the Belize Billboard, which he took up in 1941.Channel 5, September 19, 2001
Goldson joined Leigh Richardson under the Honduran Independence Party and contested the 1957 election unsuccessfully. He failed again as a member of the National Independence Party in 1961 but won one of two seats in the House for the NIP. This began his role as the long-running member of the Opposition; from 1961 to 1974 he sat in the House alone (he was appointed after the NIP lost all eighteen seats to the PUP in 1961 elections), joined only by Edwin Morey from 1965 to 1969, and remained in opposition until the PUP lost elections in 1984. Goldson, according to historian Assad Shoman, singlehandedly kept the two party system in Belize alive at a time when citizens distrusted the PUP and ignored the NIP. Goldson, however, eventually left to pursue a law degree in London, returning in 1974 after the formation of the UDP. After Theodore Aranda was deposed as leader of the UDP in 1982, Goldson ran unsuccessfully against Manuel Esquivel for the post of UDP leader, but won a Ministership in 1984.
Upon the occasion of the Maritime Areas Act's passage in 1991, Goldson led a group of politicians away to start the National Alliance for Belizean Rights (NABR). He charged that the PUP and UDP had hijacked politics in Belize for themselves and pledged to fight Belize's cause. But he was becoming increasingly stricken by blindness and though winning his seat again and serving as Minister of Immigration and Human Resources[1] from 1993-98, his time was nearly up. Former friend George Price retired in 1996 and Goldson announced he would do the same after the 1998 election.Death and honours
Goldson left Belize to treat his medical condition but did not succeed. He died in the United States on October 3, 2001[2] and was buried several days later[3] with a state funeral[4]. A few weeks prior to his death he was awarded the Order of Belize for his patriotism and political work[5].
Author and sculptor Stephen Okeke has been soliticing contributions[6] for a bust of Goldson, similar to one created for George Price[7]. As of 2007, Okeke claims the project is halfway complete[8] but still in financial difficulties.[9]
In 1989, the Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport was renamed in his honour.
Eduardo Garcia
Belizean Arts (Eduardo Garcia logo)
Young Toucan 
Zunantunich and Black Jaguar 
BELIZEAN ARTIST
Among the artists featured here are Walter Castillo, Orlando Garrido, Pen Cayetano, Nelson Young, Leo Vasquez, Piva, Eduardo Garcia, Curvin Mitchel, Carolyn Carr, Papo, Jorge Landero, Katrina Samuels, Pamela Braun, Mike "Island Dog" Gvara, Amy Brown, and others!
Click the links below for more on each artist.
Belizean Arts - Belizean Art specializes in ethnic art from the Caribbean and beyond. Our gallery features an eclectic collection of original paintings, designer jewelry, masks, ceramics, carvings and much more. An incredible resource for Belizean and Caribbean artwork.
Anatole Krasnyansky, now residing in California, was already a prominent architect and watercolorist when he left the U.S.S.R. for the United States in 1975, where he found fertile ground for his aesthetic growth. His traditional cityscapes, much admired in Europe, have grown richer, freer and more expressive; and in recent years he has evolved a second, wholly new style with which to render the experience and ideas of his new life in the United States.
With a Master’s Degree in Architecture and Fine Art, he is well versed in every aspect of the structure and design of the buildings he depicts. Since his arrival to the U.S. in 1975, the artist has found important uses for his knowledge of architecture, design and his creative imagination, and he has realized his tremendous potential and achieved virtuosity in several different artistic areas. Working as a scenic artist in television, motion pictures and the theatre, he has designed sets calling for his specialized background. Always a lover of the baroque, he incorporated the strength and fluid grace of that style into his figural compositions, capturing the sense of motion with which a building makes a line flow from one area to another.
Krasnyansky’s awareness of the interdependence of architecture, sculpture, painting and applied art, and his knowledge of these diverse disciplines have shaped his career and found expression in his art. Through experimentation he has developed his own artistic method, one that has freed him from the constraints of traditional watercolor techniques. Krasnyansky’s innovative inclusion of paper texture into the creative process is a dynamic component of his art, resulting in an expansion of the medium’s potential. He is one of the first artists to elevate the watercolor medium to the expressive possibilities usually associated with oil painting.
BZE swing bridge / ULTRA BLASTERS BAND
Russia
ENGLAND
Gerald “Lord” Rhaburn
When you think of music in Belize, jazz is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind. But if one legendary musician has his way, jazz will one day be as Belizean as Brukdown and Punta Rock.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
On Friday night, the third annual Jazz Festival will take centre stage at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts.
“Man for me, it’s like a dream coming true. I noh put this for one year; this is for all the time. Whether I get transfer or not, this wah still go on. It start small dah Barbados, Trinidad, and Jamaica and dem place have deh own jazz festival right, Bermuda. Belize have eh own jazz festival now. This is small, but I promise you it’s going to get bigger and the reason for this, is that we have what you call international jazz star abroad right.”
Both Norman Ysaguirre and John Moody found musical inspiration when the Lord Rhaburn Combo dominated the local entertainment scene.
Norman Ysaguirre, Trumpet
“I love to entertain people.”
Lord Rhaburn - the longest reigning calypso, soca, reggae and brukdown music star in Belize - next month hosts the first ever Music Awards Show.
Lord Rhaburn is best known for leading the Lord Rhaburn Combo in the seventies and eighties - the heyday of big dance bands in Belize. Along with contemporaries such as Jesus Acosta and the Professionals, The Messengers, Los Belicenos, Glenn Bood, The Brotherhood, Los Dinamicos, Mauro y Los Profetas, Dicky Straughn and others, Rhaburn is the only musician of that era still active and calling Belize his home - most other groups have fallen apart or migrated to the great Frozen North.
Today Gerald "Lord" Rhaburn frequently travels to the USA to give live performances at Belizean-American functions and recently re-released as a CD his first record "Tropico y Ritmo" recorded a couple of decades ago in Guatemala - generally considered one of the best CDs ever put out by a Belizean.
Speaking to the Belize Times Rhaburn gave the details of the upcoming show:
For decades, Belizean music and musicians have existed without any kind of recognition for their unique contributions to the cultural development of Belize. A few years ago, before Punta Rock came on the scene, many Belizeans were of the opinion that Belize had no authentic music that we could safely call our own. We used to copy a lot of stuff that was put out by artists from other countries. Now all that has changed. Belizeans are producing music at a rapid pace, so that between the time of our independence and now, a whole slew of talented musicians and singers have emerged to carve out a place for Belize on the musical map of the world.
Gerald “Lord” Rhaburn, who is perhaps the longest reigning musical star in Belize is onto something new. A few years ago, Rhaburn was instrumental in putting together the first “national music award show,” at the Palace Theater and Eden Cinema respectively.
This time he is back with something more ambitious. With the support of the Minister of Culture, Honorable Mark Espat and Image Factory’s Yasser Musa, along with a number of other people who are lending their support to the first Lord Rhaburn Musical Award Show on December 10, at the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts. After that, the plans are for the show to be an annual event. Rhaburn told Belize Times that after this first award show, he is planning for the show to be held in the festive month of September, during the national celebration period.
Lord Rhaburn said that he came up with the idea for the show, because there are many Belizean artists living abroad who are deserving of an award, as well as the many artists living at home who are not looked upon. “The idea of the award is for it to be something like the Grammy Award that is held annually in the United States.”
Rhaburn said that somewhere in the region of thirty something artists will be awarded. So for the first time, a Belizean audience will have the opportunity to see many of our foreign-based artists performing. Among the artists that are scheduled to arrive in Belize to take part in the show, whom the Lord describes as the cream of the crop, are Bella Carib, Anthony Richards, Ben McKoy, Puppa Curley, Pablo Clark, Glenn Bood. “Then there will be the best ones from here.”
Apart from performing, Rhaburn said that they are planning to set up an area where people can actually buy the CDs that have been produced by the artists.
Asked if there has been any improvement to Belizean music, Rhaburn replied that in the area of Steel Band music there has been a lot of improvement. In the area of vocals he said that there has been marked improvement, because a lot of people are writing their own lyrics.
He went on to say that some of the artists who stand out in Belize are people like Sam Hamilton, Super G, and Tittyman Flores. “The ones in the states definitely stand out. They are on a different level. I have heard a lot of them and they are on a different level,” Rhaburn said.
“In the schools, music is definitely improving, but they have nowhere where they could display their talent.
Categories
Aldous Huxley’s grousing about colonial British Honduras being on the way to nowhere else expressed a common ignorance about Belize, the most fascinating cultural mosaic of Central America’s Caribbean coast. The musical history of this tiny nation (population 250,000) remains mostly unwritten, so it’s a particular pleasure to discover a delightful compilation of tracks recorded by the locally legendary but otherwise little-known bands that created the Belizean sound of the 1960s and 1970s. This collection represents the intersecting passions of an inveterate U.S. vinyl collector and R&B fan, and producer Compton Fairweather, owner of Belize City’s Contemporary Electronic Systems, which imports and sells commercial and residential security products in a town where, as the proprietor wryly observes, "Crime pays."
Like entrepreneurial counterparts across the Caribbean, Fairweather’s success enabled him to patronize the arts, music in particular, recording a variety of bands and underwriting tours to entertain expatriate Belizean communities in the urban United States. Founder of the CES label, named after his firm, Fairweather is almost single-handedly responsible for having documented the nation’s music development in the era preceding Belizean independence from Great Britain in 1981.
Sevier tells it this way: "I heard the Soul Creations 45 ‘Funky Jive’ and decided to go to Belize to look for old records by them. We got into the airport and just started asking people where to find music. I even talked with the customs agent. Knowing that music had been recorded in the 1970s in Belize, I was going to look in used bookstores and antiques stores. I didn’t understand that people might not value old items like this."
"I had the name Contemporary Electronic Systems, and had a hunch it might be related to a store that sold appliances. I looked in the phone book and found the name. My girlfriend and I went straight there. We still had our luggage with us, and walked for 15 minutes, asking directions from people. When I saw the place, it looked like a new building, but the business had kept the same name throughout the years. We walked in and met the owner, Compton Fairweather. He was impressed that we’d gone straight there without even checking into a hotel. He took us around Belize City, and over to Bird’s Isle, the club where the musicians played. He also introduced us to Lord Rhaburn." (Still active today, Gerald "Lord" Rhaburn is Belize City’s best-known bandleader of the era.)
"We spent a couple of days with Compton, and the story was compelling enough, although I still hadn’t heard any music yet. They didn’t have any old records in Belize, with the recurring hurricane damage, flooding and all. But the timing was good, because Compton was about to liquidate his family house in Flatbush, where the records had been stored. Compton salvaged some LPs there, along with the masters at his second house, on Long Island."
A member of the Belize Creole elite, Fairweather had gone to school with current Prime Minister Said Musa, along with "Lord" Rhaburn, at St. Michael’s College in Belize City. Like many Belizeans, Fairweather had family in the United States, and moved easily back and forth. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1954, learned electronics, and saw the world. Then he went to work for Bell Laboratories, where he honed his skills. He returned to Belize periodically, eventually founding Contemporary Electronic Systems, along with the CES record label.
Fairweather toured the best bands to perform for expat Belizeans in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. While there, Fairweather booked studio time, usually in New York, used funds from the dances and concerts he organized, had LPs pressed, and sold them to Belizeans in the U.S. and back home. The first title heard comes from 1967’s Rhaburn Combo in New York, recorded live at the Manhattan Center. Other vintage Belizean groups documented herein include the Harmonettes, Jesus Acosta & the Professionals, the Soul Creations, the Web, and Nadia Cattouse. Collectively, these 16 tracks document the heavily R&B, rock, Latin and ska sounds that influenced Belizean popular music tastes in the 1960s and 1970s, a product of U.S., Mexican, Cuban and Jamaican recordings and radio broadcasts easily received across Caribbean waters.
The notes include color reproductions of album art from 12 of the sampled LPs, most strikingly, Lord Rhaburn’s Dogs of War. The original featured an aerial shot of British Harrier jets streaking over Belize City, the stand-in for a fictional West African country in the throes of a military coup, named after the 1981 Christopher Walken film made in Belize. There also are some wonderful documentary photos: a blazer-and-tie Rhaburn smiling at the drum set; a cheeky, bearded Rhaburn in full camo fatigues, brandishing an M-16 as an extra in Dogs of War; and rare shots of Acosta’s renowned Professionals and other bygone combos.
Fairweather has given some of his materials to the Belize Archives in Belmopan, the capital, and plans to donate more. Additionally, Stonetree Records founder Ivan Duran reports that his Belize-based label will work with Fairweather to reissue several legacy CES recordings, helping to document the history of Belizean popular music, a worthy project whose time has come. - Michael Stone
Reneau, who last year premiered Belize’s largest musical project “We Are Belize”, commissioned by the Government of Belize in commemoration of it’s 25th Independence Anniversary, has made this annual pilgrimage for a number of years in an effort to elevate playing standards of a growing pool of Belizean pianists.
He also hopes to continue promoting the Concert Piano art form.
Piano instruction for students of all playing levels above Grade I level of the Associate Board of the Royal Society of Music practical exams scale will be offered at Pallotti High School, Belize City beginning Monday August 6 and at the George Price Centre beginning Wednesday, August 8. These lessons run through the end of the month and culminate with selected students from both municipalities performing in concert with Reneau on Friday August 31 at the George Price Centre in Belmopan and the Bliss-Centre for the Performing Arts in Belize City on Thursday, September 6.
It is noted that master classes will be open to all music students and musicians at the conclusion of each week.
Anyone interested in registering for lessons may call #227-1336 or #605-6217 or E-mail soundboard@btl.net
Jailed rapper Shyne close to $3 million deal with Island Def Jam
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Island Def Jam expects to sign jailed rapper
Jamal "Shyne" Barrow to a $3 million record contract this week, a source familiar with negotiations said. Barrow, serving a 10-year prison term for his role in a New York night club shooting involving mentor Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and actress Jennifer Lopez, was expected to finalize the deal by the end of this week, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The rapper was jailed after the night club shooting involving P.Diddy and then girlfriend Jennifer Lopez.
The label plans to produce the album from material recorded by Barrow before he was sentenced, the source said, and the prospect of other releases from prison is unclear.
Barrow, whose deep voice has drawn comparisons to late rapper Notorious B.I.G., is not slated to be released from the state prison in Dannemora, N.Y., before 2009.
The proposed contract includes a stipulation that Barrow's albums would be released under the imprint label Gangland Records, the source said.
A spokesman for Island Def Jam parent Universal Music Group declined to comment.
Calls to Barrow's publicist were not immediately returned.
Barrow's musical career got derailed before it really got going. His self-titled debut album on Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment label was released in September 2000. "Shyne," which spawned the hit Bad Boyz, has sold more than 900,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen Soundscan.
But the following year, when he was 19, Barrow was sentenced to prison for his part in the 1999 shootout at Manhattan's Club New York.
Three people were wounded in the melee, which reportedly started after a patron insulted Combs.
Barrow was convicted of gun possession and assault and was sentenced to prison for firing a gun in the crowded club and hitting at least one of the wounded people.
No charges were filed against Lopez. Combs and his bodyguard, Anthony Wolf Jones, were charged with gun possession, but later acquitted.
Antonio Soberanis Gómez
Trade Unions honour labour leader Antonio Soberanis
Antonio Soberanis Gómez (1897-1975) was a Belizean labour activist, regarded as the father of the Belizean labour movement. He founded the Labourers and Unemployed Association in 1934 to demand poverty relief work and a minimum wage. He was jailed for sedition in 1935.
The National Trade Union Congress of Belize celebrated its 40th anniversary by honouring one of the founders of the Belizean labour movement, Antonio Soberanis.
Anthony Soberanis Sr., founder of the labour movement in Belize (Photo was taken in December of 1944)
Representatives of the Belize Communications Workers Union, the Public Service Union, the Belize National Teachers Union, and other unions assembled with the son of this great Belizean hero, Antonio Soberanis Jr., to lay wreaths at the monument honouring Antonio Soberanis Sr. in Belize City’Battlefield Park on Tuesday.
The Public Officers Union, the General Workers Development Union and the British Honduras Trade Union formed the British Honduras Trade Union Congress on July 11, 1966.
The labour movement in Belize began during the great depression which caused much unemployment in Belize in the early 1930s, a period when there was much civil unrest, even riots, in other parts of the Caribbean.
Unemployed workers of Belize City, Stann Creek and Corozal organised themselves into the short-lived Unemployed Brigade.
The leaders of this organisation were denounced on March 16, 1934 and a new organisation, the Labourers and Unemployed Association, was formed with Soberanis as its leader.
This diminutive firebrand who only stood 5’4” was arrested and charged with sedition for a fiery speech he gave to workers in October 1935. He was tried and imprisoned but later freed. Nehi Gabriel Adderley, another leader of the group was forced to exile in Guatemala.
Out of these early beginnings the British Honduras Workers; and Tradesmen Union (B.H.W.T.U.) was formed in 1939, but it was a union in name only as the law of the land did not allow a real trade union to operate in that year.
The Labour Department was formed in Belize in 1940 and the following year the British Honduras legislature reluctantly passed British Honduras Trade Union Ordinance No.1, which allowed workers limited rights to form unions.
During this same time Soberanis became an economic refugee, as he travelled to Panama along with hundres of other Belizeans and workers from other parts of the Caribbean to seek work in the Canal Zone. He later returned to Belize, and was self-employed.
In the latter years of his life, he operated a barber shop right beside the offices of the Belize Times on Queen Street.
The first union, the British Honduras Labour Union was registered in May 1943 and other unions also sprang up, such as the short-lived Carpenters and Painters Union and the National Workers Union.
In 1948 Nicholas Pollard Sr. formed the British Honduras Mercantile Clerks Union, following his involvement in the Holy Redeemer Credit Unon since 1945.
The devaluation of the British Honduras dollar in 1949 provoked great civil unrest and Nicholas Pollard Sr. was elected president of the British Honduras Labour Union, now renamed the British Honduras General Workers Union.
The People’s Committee was formed to fight British colonialism and a number of its leaders, notably John Albert Smith, George Price and Philip Goldson were also members of the B.H.G.W.U. executive.
When the B.H.G.W.U. orgnised a strike by mahogany log loaders in 1950, the strike was declared illegal, as this was deemed an essentail industry.
As a result, the following year Philip Goldson and PUP Chairman Leigh Richardson were jailed for eight months for “seditious intentions”.
Over the years other unions were formed, such as the Christian Workers Union in 1962, the Northern Christian Union, an outgrowth of the cane workers union, and the Civil Service Association became the Public Officers’ Union in 1963.
Milton S. Palacio
Was born and raised in Los Angeles, however his parents, Clifford and Rita Palacio are immigrants from Belize
Has eight brothers and sisters
Wants to teach or be an elementary school principal when his basketball career is done.
Looked up to Magic Johnson and “Showtime” Lakers growing upAttended Gardena High School
Enjoys reading and watching movies.
Milton S. Palacio born February 7, 1978 in Los Angeles, California) is a professional basketball player, formerly in the NBA. He was born to Belizean parents and is a Belizean citizen.
Palacio attended Gardena High School, located near Los Angeles, CA, and Compton, CA. He played college basketball at Colorado State University and went undrafted in 1999. He has played for the Vancouver Grizzlies, the Boston Celtics, the Phoenix Suns, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors, and the Utah Jazz with a career scoring average of 4.8 points per game.
He led Belize to a gold medal in the 1998 CARICOM Men's Basketball Tournament, which the country hosted. Palacio has recently held summer camps in his parents' homeland for aspiring Belizean basketball players.
Despite a solid season with the Utah Jazz, Palacio was a free agent at the start of the 2006-2007 preseason. He eventually caught on with the Seattle SuperSonics and was subsequently waived because he couldn't unseat Mike Wilks as the third-string point guard behind Luke Ridnour and Earl Watson.
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