Arubans in the News

Nicole Hoevertsz, member of the Aruba Olympic Committee met with First Lady Michelle Obama during the IOC congress in Copenhagen for the bidding of the host country for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Sarah-Quita Offringa was crowned World Champion Women’s Freestyle for the second consecutive year in the Professional Windsurf Association (PWA) Grand Slam Tour 2009 held in Sotavento, Fuerteventura Spain. Sarah-Quita, who just turned 18 on July 4th, remained in Europe, continuing on the Grand Slam Tour circuit to Alcati, Turkey to compete in the slalom event. She is now ranked 13th in the world on the PWA Slalom Tour.
For information please visit www.pwaworldtour.com.

Other Sports Related:
Ten year old Shanayah Howell is setting new records in the competitive BMX bicycle racing worldwide by winning the USA BMX Racing National Championship held in Louisville, Kentucky.

Eyewitness reports from the final Hubble Space Telescope Mission

On Monday, May 18, Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel began the final spacewalk an hour ahead of schedule, determined to see all repairs were completed; including on which had been delayed by difficulties with a stubborn screw the day before. Dr. Ed Cheung, Principle Engineer of the Hubble Service Project, normally working out of Goddard Space Center, had been stationed at Kennedy Space Center with his team for months prior to launch and after at Johnson Space Center walking the astronauts through the practice for and actual repairs. He has been sending his daily eyewitness reports back to his native island of Aruba to share this great adventure with his countrymen. Dr. Cheung confirms this final Extra-Vehicular Activity, EVA 5 completed the required repairs and installation of new equipment, and the Atlantis crew will be heading home. A misstep by Astronaut Grunsfeld resulted in small piece of the HST antennae breaking away, but scientists on the ground report no disruption in communications with the science platform.
Dr. Cheung writes: “Today is the last EVA day. We installed a new Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS), the second new battery, and several door blankets (NOBLs.) I was not involved in the development of this equipment.”

“The FGS is used to lock Hubble onto a target.  Whenever a science observation is scheduled, two guide stars are selected near the target.  These are bright single stars with known locations.  When Hubble is moved to acquire a target, it looks for those bright stars, and ‘locks onto’ them.  It then directs its attitude control system to keep those stars in precise view.  If they should appear to move, the control system moves the vehicle to keep them in the same spot.  This is one of the reasons Hubble is so stable.  There are three FGS’s on Hubble, and two have been replaced (one is still original).  Installation of the new unit encountered the same problem as WFC3: the old bolt did not want to release (seems to be a common problem), but it was handled the same way, and no further problems occurred.  The new one passed all tests”

“The NOBLs are new blankets for the small doors on Hubble.  The old insulation has deteriorated due to so many years of sun exposure, and this impacts the electronics inside.  One of these doors holds the data transmitter to the ground.  If this overheats, we would have a big problem.  Currently, we manage this by turning the transmitter on and off.  With all the new instruments, it would be a shame not to get the images down to the ground, so a new blanket was essential.  Our lead spacewalker, John Grunsfeld, knows this, and you could tell in last night’s conference with the Flight Director, how driven he was to install all three NOBLs.  We felt great when hearing the determination in his voice.”

“To cut to the ending….today’s space walk went extremely well.  It took John and Drew only 4 1/2 hrs to finish the two main tasks.  They were then able to install all three new blankets.  We had always planned on installing only one this day.  But their hard work allowed us to do all three.  After doing all this to benefit to Hubble, John had a small accident just prior to coming back inside.  He knocked the very tip off the communications antenna; this is underneath Hubble.  This was no big deal, but they installed a protective cover that was onboard just for this eventuality.  While John was coming back in, he said “Sorry Mr. Hubble”.  I get emotional just thinking about this.  He has done so much for Hubble, and I hope he won’t beat himself up over this.  We all know how much Hubble means to John, being the only astronomer-astronaut to work on her.”

“Tonight we had a few short social events in our control room at mission control.  The wives of some of the astronaut crew came in and presented us with a cake in the shape of Hubble.  It was nice sharing it with them.  “I won’t miss the long hours or travel away from home. However, I will miss coming to work and seeing the Shuttle everyday on the drive in; the excitement I felt these past few months and during my time at Kennedy Space Center; having the security clearance to be able to go into the Orbiter any time I wanted to; having lunch or dinner with my work buddies every day; the quiet times at Mission Control when I can write these notes; the busy times at Mission Control when I am trying to solve 2 or 3 problems simultaneously while listening to the loops.”

“Tomorrow we will release Hubble, and say goodbye to her for the last time.  I will probably stay an extra long shift to witness it.  With that, this will be my final update of STS-125.  I have enjoyed writing them for you, and I really hope you have enjoyed reading them.  I am pretty tired of these shifts, and ready to go home, but I know that after a few days there, I will look back at this whole mission, and realize how much I wish I could do it again.”

Continued eyewitness coverage of the final mission to completely overhaul and update the Hubble Space Telescope continues to stream in from Dr. Ed Cheung, Principle Engineer of the Hubble Service Project, who was born and raised in Aruba.

Sunday’s spacewalk, EVA 4, was performed by astronauts Mike Massimino and Michael “Bueno” Good. The walk took an additional 2 hours longer than the original 6 ½ hours planned. The goal was to repair one of two redundant channels in the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), a state-of-the-art instrument that broke down in 2004 when its low-voltage power supply failed. Removal of a handrail blocking access held up the work. Three bolts holding the central bar of the handrail unscrewed easily, but the forth was stripped by attempts at removal. The final solution was the use of brute force, as Astronaut Massimo pulled the handrail away once the anticipated breaking points were protected with tape to prevent debris from flying about. The time wasted forced the astronauts to return to the shuttle to top off their air supply and recharge the batteries on their power tools to be able to continue with the purpose of EVA 4.
Dr. Cheung’s latest update on Sunday’s events:

“Today we performed the repair of the STIS.  I did not work on this hardware.  We were also intending to install a replacement shell on one of the small doors.  These are called NOBLs (”nobels”). When we repaired ACS, it included the removal of 32 little screws.  Today, we repaired STIS, which required the removal of 111 screws of three types!  Doing these repairs were considered a crazy idea when these instruments failed, but we gradually found that “yes” we can do this little job, then that little job, and before you knew it, we realized we could do the whole thing.”

“However, before we could get to the lid, we had to remove a handle bar on the outside shell of the instrument.  Recall that this science instrument was never intended to be repaired in space.  Well, the crew removed three of the four screws, but….the fourth one was damaged and would not turn!  After one and a half hours of various attempts at removal, the crew considered just pulling the bar off, and breaking the screw.  By then, several of our colleagues had replicated this condition on the ground in one of our machine shops and found that it took 60 lbs of pull force to snap the bolt by pulling the long handle.  Here in Houston, we saw the video of the team doing this back home in Maryland, and the spectacular result of the bar flying around the machine shop once it was loose.  We all wondered if crew safety would allow us to perform this procedure in space.”

“We had Mike Massimino doing the task (nicknamed “Mass”).  He is a very tall and strong guy, so he was up to it.  Unfortunately, we did not have a video link, so we never got the video.  He pulled the handle off, and we were able to proceed.  That was another one of those unbelievable moments of this mission were they just did what had to be done.  He then placed a special plate on top of the cover of the instrument.  This plate is extra thick with little Lexan compartments.  A thin tool can be used to loosen the screws of the lid, but they would be captured in this Lexan shell.”

“Once all those screws and the lid was removed, Mass brought it close to his helmet camera, and it was breathtaking to see all those tiny screws and washers floating around in each of their little Lexan cells.  They looked like little fish swimming around in their little bowls.  Ordinarily such a sight in space would be a nightmare were it not for them being contained.  One of my coworkers describes it best.  He said that they looked like a bunch of angry bees.  OMG, if they ever got out!”

“In a previous update, I described the voice ‘loops’ that we use to communicate with each other.  The most exclusive of these is A/G, or Air-to-Ground.  This is what Houston uses to talk to the crew in space.  The only person that is normally permitted to talk from the ground is called “Capcom” (captain of communications).  This person is always an astronaut.  He represents the crew’s interest on the ground, and he sits right next to the Flight Director (”Flight” from Apollo 13).  Any of us is allowed to listen to monitor this loop.  Well tonight, we were privy to an unusual event.  Flight talked directly to the astronaut crew in a strategy session for tomorrow, the final space walk day at Hubble.  It was a very candid talk, and we felt the great relationship they have with each other.”

“So far, all of our space walks have been very successful.  It is a testament to my coworkers that all the hardware has electrically and mechanically fit and functioned without problems.  Of course, the astronaut crew deserves credit too, but there are thousands of unseen people on the ground that designed, built, tested and prepared the hardware over the course of years to get to this point.  We now have two amazing imaging instruments, half a set of new batteries, new gyros, a new spectrograph, and other smaller items installed and tested.  Soon (tonight) we will find out about the second spectrograph repaired today.  Hubble is already the most powerful it has ever, ever been, and we have one more day to go.”
As equipment is installed and repaired, the Hubble team at Goddard Space Center in Maryland begins running tests to insure all is working properly before the shuttle departs the HST for good. One more day of repairs, with no more missions to HST planned, as a new telescope platform is already designed to eventually replace Hubble. Astronauts’ lives are at stake every day in space, a calculated risk, but one NASA does take arbitrarily. Turing the final day of STS-125, they must be sure they have successfully accomplished all they set out to do to insure HST is performing at top efficiently while delivering high quality information to scientists exploring our universe.

Eyewitness accounts of the final service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope

Servicing Mission (SM 4) is now four days done, and astronauts John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel have completed the first of five space walks to service and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope 350 miles above the earth. The two priority jobs, replacement of the science computer and installation of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) are now completed. The removal of the WFC2, which served scientists for sixteen years and provided some remarkable images, proved not so simple a task as anticipated.

Dr. Ed Cheung, born in Aruba, holds the position of Principle Engineer of the Hubble Space Telescope Service Project, and was the designer of the WFC3, which he spent eight years perfecting. In his latest daily update from mission control at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, he explains that a long day of unexpected difficulties made the tasks of installing these two vital pieces of equipment as “harrowing.”

“Today we had our first day with space walks.  EVA Day 1 (Extra-Vehicular Activity Day 1).  On this day, we installed the WFC3 and SIC&DH. It will be the next premier imaging instrument for Hubble.  Compared to the one it is replacing (which has only about 2.5 Megapixels), the new camera will have 16 Megapixels.  More importantly, it can see a wider range of colors, from infrared to ultraviolet.  It will be like opening our eyes for the first time to colors and details we have never seen.”

“The SIC&DH is the science data computer that failed last year, and caused the delay in the mission.  At the time, we switched to the backup unit that had been in space for 18 years waiting for its turn.  However, NASA management decided we would not risk another failure that would render Hubble completely useless as a science instrument.  I happen to be Electrical Lead on both of these items, and they were on the first EVA day due to their priority.  WFC3 was first.  Well, it did not go smoothly.  We had major problems getting the old instrument (WFPC2) out.  To remove the instrument, the astronauts needed to turn one bolt.  Well it did not turn at all!  They had to change tools to apply more and more torque.  It got to the point where they could snap the bolt in half by applying more than 50 ft-lbs of torque.  If that occurred, we would never be able to remove the old instrument to put in the new one.  This was extremely harrowing (to say the least).”

“Due to my shift schedule, I watched this all unfold in my hotel room.  I had access to the live TV from space, and communicated with my teammates via a chat program.  While this was all unfolding, we were all getting very anxious, including me.  When all options were exhausted, and the astronaut approached with the big wrench, we were all hoping for the best.  When Drew Fuestel finally turned the bolt, and it turned, we did not know if the bolt broke or not.  He then reported to our relief that he said that it felt like it was turning, and not broken!  There was applause in the control rooms back home in Maryland and in Texas.  Prior to that, I could not believe that this was happening.  After years of work, and careful planning, a single bolt almost caused it all to go to waste.  So far, our tests of the new camera are good.  The tests will continue through the night.”

The WFC3 should soon start delivering remarkable images of space never observed by scientists before. Literally, the camera is a “time machine,” as the images will be from celestial bodies so distant that scientists will be watching events that have taken places centuries and millennia past, because of the time it takes for light to travel to the Hubble. More space walks and repairs continue today, with the hope that all goes smoothly, but prepared for perhaps another “harrowing” day.

Story by Rosalie Klein

On Monday, May 11, the Atlantis Space Shuttle blasted off on the last mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) with a crew of seven astronauts who will install a new science computer to replace one that failed in September after 19 years, as well as a telemetry module and the Wide Field Camera III, among a number of other tasks. These three essential items to the continued productivity of the HST were designed and built by Dr. Edward Cheung, an electrical engineer specializing in robotics, and Principle Engineer of the HST Service Project; a native son of Aruba.

Dr. Cheung is has been sharing his eye witness accounts of the mission and its progress on a daily basis with reporter Rosalie Klein, family and friends, and he has kindly agreed to allow his accounts to be placed on Aruba.com. Readers will find they best inform as to the actual events, as well as providing his touching emotional involvement in being a part of seeing history made and opening areas of the universe never seen before to scientific observation.

Prior to launching, Dr. Cheung wrote:

“It has been several months since my previous launch update in October 2008, and a lot has happened since then. About two weeks before our previous launch, we had a malfunction on Hubble in space.  The central science instrument computer failed.  Without this unit, we would be unable to do any science observations.  The original unit had been operating flawlessly for 18 years since the release of Hubble.  We switched over to the backup unit, but conversations started immediately on what to do about this problem.  The NASA Administrator decided that it was not acceptable to leave Hubble without a backup, and the mission was put on hold.  This decision stunned many at the time (including the astronauts that would fly, and myself), but it has proven to be the absolutely correct response now that we can look back on it.”

“This will be our final visit to Hubble, and my final Shuttle mission.  As I have been visiting these facilities here for the final time these past few days, I do so with a sense of bittersweet happiness.  It has been a great privilege to be part of this team, and to have access to these facilities, and my team members and I have enjoyed our work.  Many of us cannot help but feel that this will be the highpoint of our careers and our personal experiences.”

Regarding Monday’s launch:

“It has been 7 years since I saw a Shuttle launch, and it is just amazing! We (his wife Agnes and two children, plus guests) had a good view from the Causeway, and we were looking straight down the tail of the Orbiter.  We could see the entire stack, including the MLP, and the flame trench.

Upon ignition, you only see the big white cloud of exhaust, but slowly the Shuttle rises above it.  Then, the exhaust flames come into view as a super BRIGHT flash.  The crowd erupts with this reveal with spontaneous emotion and cheering.  The Shuttle continues to climb silently and steadily with a bright red rooster tail.”

“Once the Shuttle is about 40 degrees in elevation, the sound finally hits you.  It is like a raucous rattle that shakes your body.  From 6 miles away, you can sense its POWER.  The main engines and the solids shall not be denied. Unexpectedly, I shed major tears.  I will never see my WFC3 instrument again.  I feel like a parent sending his child into the world to do its intended thing, never to see it again.  I worked on this instrument for 8 years.  I know every connector, cable, box, pin and wire tie.”

“My last Shuttle mission; and I shall miss KSC, the Shuttle, and everything about it. Now it is time to go to Houston, and set to work on Hubble”

The work will soon begin as astronauts lead by Commander Scott Altman approach HST. Aruba.com will continue to provide daily eyewitness updates from Dr. Cheung as the astronauts complete their twelve-day mission. 

Story by Rosalie Klein

As Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its way to the Hubble Space Telescope, Dr. Ed Cheung of Aruba traveled to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to head the team that will supervise the astronauts as they complete their assignment installing new and replacement equipment at the observatory. The astronauts go through months of simulation before the launch to become proficient at handling the intricate tasks required. Dr. Cheung and his team will be in constant contact with the astronauts as they work; ready to evaluate and advise them as to what to do when things do not go exactly according to plan. This is something technicians always take into account once the actual job is attempted in outer space, no matter how much testing and practice was done on the ground.

On the morning of May 13, Dr. Cheung writes:

“The Shuttle has not arrived near Hubble yet, so it is quiet in our control center.  There are three Flight Control Rooms here, and this is where NASA personnel monitor the mission from the ground.  These three are named after their color: Red, White and Blue.  The Hubble team is assigned the Blue Flight Control Room (BFCR).  The Shuttle is controlled from the White room, which is the one you see on TV all the time.  The Red room is used only for emergencies.”

“We work at our consoles, and monitor screens for data and listen on headsets.  The Shuttle data is on the built-in consoles, and we have been trained how to use those in previous training simulations.  The Hubble data is on separate smaller desktops and our laptops.  We are used to seeing those from back home.  We also have really big screens in front to see the big map (tracking where Hubble, the Shuttle, and comm satellite footprints, day/night line are) and also another screen that changes depending on what we are doing.”

“We listen to voice channels called ‘loops’.  Usually, we monitor several loops at once; although anyone may listen to any loop, who is allowed to speak on each one follows a strict protocol.  For example, the top person in command of the entire mission is the Flight Director.  This position was made famous during Apollo 13 by Gene Kranz (whom I met him a few years ago).  The Flight Director (abbreviated “Flight”) has his own loop, and only the top level people speak on that one.  Monitoring this loop allows you to know what is going on at the highest level.  One of the persons on this loop is “Payload”.  He/she represents the hardware being flown that mission.  Payload has a loop of his own where his subordinates use to communicate with him.  One of the persons allowed to talk on this loop is “Servicing Mission Manager”.  This person is the top Hubble person in the hierarchy.  I am part of “Systems”, and I use a fourth level loop to communicate with my subordinates.”

“To start a conversation, a person says three words.  The first word is the party they want to reach.  The second word is who they are themselves, and the third is the name of the loop they want to use.  Of course, they do this on a loop that the intended person is expected to monitor.  This way, a person can listen to several conversations at once, and just follow them lightly.  If they hear their call sign mentioned, they can find out who is looking for them, and which loop to “punch up” to respond.  All these simultaneous conversations are controlled from the panel with the yellow display in the image.  It sounds complicated, but with training, you can do it smoothly. We install WFC3 on the next shift after mine; that should be very exciting.”

Dr. Cheung reports he will be happy to answer personal inquiries regarding the HST by sending an e-mail to ed@edcheung.com. Official information and updates on the mission can be seen at the Hubble site: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/servicing/SM4/multimedia/index.html. 

Story by Rosalie Klein

The launching of Space Shuttle Atlantis on Monday, May 11, has again brought to the forefront of island an individual that is a great source of pride for the people of Aruba; Dr. Edward Cheung, Principle Engineer of the Hubble Space Telescope Service Project. His work has been vital over the years in keeping the telescope operative and innovative, designing and implementing, along with his team, equipment that solved various problems, some impossible to anticipate, which cropped up once the space observatory was placed in orbit. On a number of occasions they managed to save the beleaguered project.

Dr. Chueng was raised in San Nicolas, spending most of his time, he admits, around his grandfather’s small establishment, The Fontein Rum Shop. His grandfather came from Hong Kong to Aruba to work in the Lago Refinery, and his grandmother followed soon after Ed’s father, Kong Ming, to escape the Second World War. Ed’s father eventually opened his own grocery store, the Kong Ming Market, which would pay for Ed’s education at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute where he did his undergraduate studies.

From WPI, Ed went to acquire his Masters and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Yale University. His specialty was robotics, always with an eye to working in the space program. He earned his PhD with a scholarship provided by Philips Labs and NASA. In 1990 his doctorate dissertation was witnessed by a recruiter from NASA, resulting in a summer job at Kennedy Space Center, and his future was set. Though offered positions at the Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers, Ed chose to work at Goddard in Maryland, as this offered him the best chance “to put something into space. Eventually, this “something” turned out to be very historic for the island of Aruba.

When problems cropped up with a vital part of the HST that affected its cooling system, a solution needed to be found immediately. Something that would have normally taken months was produced in a few short weeks, and Dr. Cheung and his team devised the ARUBA box, or ASCS/NCS Relay Unit Breaker Assembly, which was attached to the HST in the spring of 2002, during the last successful mission of the ill-fated Columbia Space Shuttle. Dr. Cheung confesses that he devised the acronym to excite and stimulate interest in space and engineering amongst young students back on his home island. All Arubans watched with great emotion as the ARUBA Box mission was telecast worldwide.

Since then, Dr. Cheung has continued to make great contributions to the Hubble project, along with other innovations in computer and robotic science. He has garnered a number of accolades for his designs and inventions, including the Internet Pic 2000 Award, honors from publications such Nuts and Volts, Express PCB and Home Automater, plus the Ichabod Washburn Award from his Alma Mater, Worcester Polytechnic. It was a proud moment for Dr. Cheung when Astronaut John Grunsfeld pinned a Silver Snoopy Award on him for his contributions to the HST project, which he claims he never could have earned without the excellent work and cooperation of his team. Dr. Cheung was profiled in the 2007 edition of the Hubble Telescope Science Year in Review.

Dr. Cheung spent five years with NASA before joining the Hubble team, and it took time to ascend to his present position of Principle Engineer. In 2006 he received his fifteen-year award from NASA, and his responsibility has been the design and implementation hardware that keeps the telescope in orbit. It is his job to analyze and correct any anomalies. For years he was dedicated to perfecting the Wide Field Camera III, which will be installed on to the telescope during this current mission, along with a telemetry module he designed and a new science computer to replaced one that failed in September, delaying the mission, which was originally scheduled for October.

Dr. Cheung has generously shared his eyewitness accounts of the present mission, up to the launch and including daily updates on the progress. He provides fascinating information of the actual process, along with his own feelings of pride at being involved in making U.S. history, and hopes he will inspire others from his native island, particularly the youth, to strive to be the best they can be and always keep reaching for the stars!

Story by Rosalie Klein

Mrs. Jane Semeleer has been appointed as the new President of the Central Bank of Aruba. Jane previously held the position of Executive Director of the Bank and is the first woman to ever hold this position on Aruba and in the Dutch Caribbean since the establishment of the Central Bank on Aruba after it got its Status Aparte in 1986. She will take over the duties of outgoing President Mr. Hassanali Merhan starting September 1st 2008.

Aruban artist & sculptor, Mr. Ryan Oduber, is busy building a giant bronze cactus as part of a sculpture workshop currently taking place in China. Titled “Energia” (energy), this bronze cactus will be featured on the famous Changchun World Sculpture Park, the largest sculpture park in the world, about 540 sculptures created by artists from over 172 countries, in November 2008.

We Have Lost A Friend, A True Dutch/Aruban Celebrity

Aruba’s sweetheart, the “darling of Dutch couture,” fashion designer Percy Irausquin, who just recently celebrated his 39th birthday among friends and family members on Aruba, was found dead in his house in Amsterdam, The Netherlands today.

His spokesperson made the announcement to the press in The Netherlands today, after family and friends had been notified on the island. It was reported he had slipped in the bathroom and hit his head on the floor, the blow was fatal.

Dutch police stated to the press, “There are no indications that a crime has taken place, but to determine the exact cause of death the public prosecutor decided to have an autopsy done.” According to Amsterdam police, the accident happened this morning, a spokesperson said that police were informed around 1:30 in the afternoon (Dutch time) that he was being resuscitated. No further details were available at time of print of this NEWS edition.

Percy Irausquin won the prestigious Frans Molenaar young designers’ prize in 2001, propelling his career, with countless milestones following. His most famous work includes designs for Disney Princess Belle for Disneyland Paris’ anniversary auction, Dutch star Katja Schuurman’s wedding dress, a t-shirt for Designers Against AIDS, a bag for ArtBag, the design on the roof of a BMW Mini, the dress that was worn to the Oscars by Academy Award Winner Suzy Templeton, and many more. A particularly nice highlight in his career were the 31 pages that magazine Beau Monde dedicated to him recently, having traveled with him to Aruba to experience his take on the island he so much loves and to photograph models wearing his creations at various of his favorite locations.

His Summer 2009 collection, presented at the Amsterdam International Fashion Week recently, was the last time Percy presented his creations to his fans, with “beautiful dresses and coordinated sets,” and was much praised. “His passing is an enormous loss for the Dutch fashion industry, a dark day for our branch,” spokesperson for ModeInt expressed.

Percy Irausquin, as fame came his way, remained the demure, beloved son, brother and friend to all. He expressed more than once as his career was taking off that his sisters were his great sources of inspiration. He mentioned often the colors of the island, Carnaval, the fabrics, feathers and sequins that would be lying around in the house and the love for fashion of the women in his family…

Staff and management of THE NEWS wish Mamai and Percy’s brother and five sisters and their families and friends much strength. May Percy rest in peace.

This story submitted by The News

Top right: Percy receiving the Dutch Fashion Designer of the Year award.

Bottom: Percy with Aruban models, including one of his nieces, at the first presentation of his designs on Aruba.