By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts-(November 2018)- Following a gubernation run-off election conducted in on Tuesday this week (20th November), Albert Bryan Jr. and St.Kitts-born Tregenza Roach were chosen by voters as the Governor-Elect and Lieutenant Governor-Elect of the US Virgin Islands, respectively.
Both men have beaten incumbents Kenneth Mapp and Osbert Potter with an overall tally of 11,796 votes to 9,766.
In April this year, Bryan who is a former Labour Commissioner, formally announced his candidacy for governor with Roach- who at the time had been a VI senator of almost six years- as his running mate.
As gathered, Roach was born in Sandy Point, St.Kitts and moved to St. Thomas at the age of eight to join his parents Victor and Iona Roach who had made that USVI their home years earlier.
Joyce Bryan Kean, an Anguillan-Kittitian residing in St. Thomas, in speaking with this media house this week during her visit to the Federation, extended congratulations to Bryan and Roach, and had this to say: “To our new governor Bryan and Lieutenant Governor Roach, as proud West Indians, we are all proud of you. Lieutenant Governor Roach, Congratulations!”
Information gleaned from stjohnsource.com highlights that Roach graduated from the Charlotte Amalie High School and attended the then College of the Virgin Islands, transferring to the University of Missouri-Columbia to earn a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1981.
He is said to have launched his journalism career as a reporter for the Virgin Islands Daily News and became news editor.
Furthermore, he earned a law degree from Connecticut School of Law in 1989 and clerked in the Office of the Governor’s Legal Counsel, the Office of the United States Attorney, and at the Territorial Court of the Virgin Islands.
As shared, after earning his law degree, he worked in the Territorial Court’s Civil and Family divisions and then in private practice as an associate attorney at Bornn, Bornn, Handy and Rashid. He has been a member of the Virgin Islands Bar since his admission in 1991.
Roach, according to the website, began a career of public service as Legal Counsel to the Commissioner of Education, for more than eight years and was then selected as Executive Director of the Virgin Islands Board of Education. He went on to work with the University of the Virgin Islands.
It is also publicised that he served on the adjunct faculty of the University of the Virgin Islands from 1999 to 2012, teaching courses in the humanities. He also taught a constitutional law course in the graduate program in education.
Additionally, it is understood that Roach is also a published author and poet and earlier this year published his first book for children: “The Lesson Box,” which joins his other publications, “The Blessing of Rain and Other Poems,” and “All This Is Love: A Collection of Virgin Islands Poetry, Art and Prose.”