Early Years
Trevor De Cressie Armstrong was born on February 6, 1935 in Kingston, Jamaica to Norman Armstrong and Daisy (Nee Heron) his wife. When Trevor was six, his parents divorced and two years later his father went to Panama. His mother made up her mind that since her father and three uncles had gone to Potsdam and had turned out well, Trevor would go to Munro and turn out well. Trevor attended Hardy House which was a euphemism for Kingston College Prep School and there he met other future Munronians such as “Bully” Williams and Orville Beswick. He contracted malaria in 1947 and having got over that, Trevor went to Munro in 1948.
School Days
Academically he was an average student. In cadets he was a Lance Corporal. He obtained colours in cricket, tennis, hockey, and football. He was selected for all DaCosta Cup team. In junior rifle shooting, he was part of the Team under Laurie Sharp’s captaincy, that won the de Carteret Shield in 1949.
The Entrepreneur
On leaving Munro in 1953 he worked at E.R Squib Pharmaceutical Company for five years, followed by four years with the Bank of Nova Scotia. His next five years were spent at Grace Kennedy where he rose to the position of Export Manager. He decided to become an entrepreneur and with David Hughes a Grace Kennedy co-worker and Dr. John Masterton, a veterinarian, they went into the chemical industry creating “Carlo” a household and farmyard name for treating against ticks, lice, mites and screw worms. They also made wound powder. David Hughes and Trevor produced Pyro insecticide, another household name in Jamaica. David died in his early thirties. Trevor and John renamed the company Latin American Export Limited which exported and distributed the Carlo brand.
They continued to be pioneering researchers and developed a mosquito repellent made from local pimento oil and imported cheese extract with peanut butter oil. Trevor said that mothers loved the lotion which they praised as being “easy to apply”. This repellent called “Naturganic” was a partial answer in the armoury against Mosquito borne diseases.
In 2004 the Company received an award from the Jamaica Pest Control Authority for registering the least toxic pesticide available in Jamaica. The Company was sold to Consumer Brands in July 2015. Consumer Brands is owned by Athol Smith an old Munronian.
Service
You could be forgiven for thinking that Trevor Armstrong would not have had time to spend on his Alma Mater. Forgiven, but wrong. He was a member of the Munro College Board of Governors under Chairman Laurie Sharp during the 1990s, when members resigned over a ruling by the Ministry of Education in the ganja trading /expulsion affair. During the final decade of the 20th century the first commercial wind turbine in Jamaica was established at Munro. This was the brainchild of Munronian Paul Stockhausen.
There was a huge building programme and the Richard B. Roper Auditorium building was restarted after a lengthy hiatus and completed. Armstrong could be seen at most Munro functions carrying and showing off his framed prints of the painting of a view of Munro done by Susan Shirley, wife of Old Boy Greg Shirley. Many were thus encouraged to buy prints and support the auditorium building fund.
He spearheaded a herculean effort to get Munro into the top six schools at Boys Champs achieving as high as 4th place during the 1990s. This effort included encouragement at Munro of Coach Harrison and the boys’ accommodation in Kingston at a hotel where Trevor and his team rented a part of the hotel’s kitchen and storeroom, supplied all the needs of the boys, and visited the athletes daily along with Dr. Paul Auden and often, Laurie Sharp. Despite Munro’s small population of about seven hundred the school achieved positions out of proportion to size in Boys Champs, the Penn Relays in Pennsylvania, and the Gibson Relays locally.
Armstrong, along with Auden and Harrison were able to get some thirty scholarships for Munro’s athletes and twenty-five for footballers in the Universities of Princeton, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tulane, Auburn, Mississippi, Texas and East Stroudsburg. He said that the coaches scouting from the American Universities, were impressed with the academic competence and character of Munronians along with the athletic skill, which combination ensured easy access to scholarship places. He coached the hockey team for four years. Munro was in the finals all four times and won the Henriques Shield twice.
Family
Trevor has two children, Phillip, a banker in Jamaica and Nicola a technician in a hospital in Florida. Nicola is married to Donahue Rose, a Wolmerian and they have three children, Dominic, Samantha and Dylan. Trevor has recently lost his mother at the age of one hundred and six . Her wisdom in choosing Munro for Trevor having paid off. For the above and other reasons, Trevor DeCressie Armstrong was proudly inducted into the Munro College Old Boys Association Hall of Fame.
