March 17, 2003 – Dr. Alfred O. Heath will receive the Alexander A. Farrelly Public Service Award by the Virgin Islanders for Responsive Government at a dinner dance scheduled for June.
The organization's president, James A. O'Bryan Jr., said, "The board of directors looked at the many contributions Dr. Heath has made to the community in medicine and health care, military service, business and community, music and his church, and could find no better qualified candidate to select for this very noteworthy recognition."
He said Heath served as health commissioner and chief executive officer at what was then St. Thomas Hospital, now Roy L. Schneider Hospital, under Farrelly.
Heath was the Democratic Party's unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor in 1994, running with former Lt. Gov. Derek Hodge against the Schneider/Mapp team. Heath served 30 years in the V.I. National Guard, receiving the V.I. Distinguished Service Medal and Legion of Merit Award when he retired in 1999.
Heath serves on the University of the Virgin Islands Board of Trustees, and is a member of the St. Thomas Rotary and the Caribbean Chorale. He is a Eucharistic minister and lector at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, where he sings in the choir.
He is also a licensed pilot.
Plans for a June dinner dance to give Heath the award are incomplete.
Virgin Islanders for Responsive Government is a nonprofit philanthropic and humanitarian organization, formed in 2001 to promote community-based social initiatives, O'Bryan said.
The group plans to use money raised through its various fundraisers, including its annual dinner dance, to establish after-school programs for students. O'Bryan said those programs have not yet started.
Gov. Charles W. Turnbull received the first Public Service Award in 2002.

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