Thursday | March 15, 2001
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Slain principal had a passion for dominoes


Morris

HE NEVER spoke much, but was firm about one thing, the welfare of his students. He had one passion ­ dominoes.

Keith Anthony Morris, 50, principal of Hartlands All-age School was killed on Tuesday night as he sat playing dominoes at a shop along the Braeton main road. As gunmen robbed the shop then opened fire on the group of men, Morris ran but was chased and shot in the back. The grief started for his family with an early telephone call.

"When the police called this morning, I knew something was wrong because I know I don't have any dealings with the police, and when they told me I was so shocked...I just couldn't believe it," his wife, Beverly Morris, said yesterday as she sat with her head in her hands at her home.

"He's a very quiet person, well-known in the area and everybody just loves him. He is not a violent person. Him just love dominoes, dominoes that's him."

Students and teachers of a tiny school in Hartlands, St. Catherine were also still in shock yesterday afternoon as they mourned the loss of their principal, friend and confidant.

For 18 years he had been their principal, he was also teacher in charge of grades 7-9 where he groomed students for the Grade Nine Acheivement and Technical Entrance examinations.

"When we heard this morning everybody was in tears. Every-body was upset. We tried to have regular school but we just couldn't," said Denise Grant, a teacher at the school, who also told of the attachment.

"We will never in life get another principal like him. He is that type of principal who if a child is absent will go to look to see what the problem is. If there are persons in the community who have little problems, he is there to offer support and to get involved. I have never heard him even raise his voice."

A bee-farming project started in early 1997 to help both the community and the students and plans for a poultry-rearing project are the sad and silent reminders of a man who decided that being a teacher also meant sharing everything with the ones who called you 'friend'.

Mr. Morris leaves behind six children, Zerodia, Godfrey, Keith Jnr., Oneil, Karen, and two-year-old Keithania.

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