By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 4, 2021 – My Facebook friend Harold Williams, who lives in Freeport, Grand Bahama, and is a top executive at Bahamasair, just posted this very good news on his Facebook page with a promotional advertisement:
“Call or visit Bahamasair online to see our Bahamian Superstar Jazz Chisholm play with the Miami Marlins. It’s a Bahamian Heritage Night in Miami.”
When I saw it, my bongo drums started beating in my heart and I was overwhelmed with joy as I rhetorically said out loud, “Thank you Joy for following up on my advice,”
The Joy I am referring to is Joy Jibrilu, the Director General of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism. At the end of April, I suggested in an article published in BAHAMAS CHRONICLE that given The Bahamas’ close proximity to Miami, The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism should use “Jazz Chisholm’s rising stardom and growing popularity in Miami to arrange with the Public Relations Department of the Marlins to sponsor a Jazz Chisholm Night during one of the Marlins upcoming home games this season.”
I thought it was a fantastic suggestion, so I included it in an email I sent to Joy Jibrilu, in which I noted: “Prizes given away could include several round-trip tickets to Nassau and Freeport.”
Having worked with Ministry of Tourism’s Public Relations Team in the Florida area for more than a year helping to promote The Bahamas as one of the world’s leading tourist destinations before my contract was abruptly cancelled last December, I was absolutely confident that Anita Johnson-Patty, Bahamas Ministry of Tourism General Manager Communications (USA) based in Fort Lauderdale, and her team would effectively generate a whole lot of publicity for The Bahamas from such a promotion.
I don’t know whether Bahamian Heritage Night in Miami on Saturday, June 12, is a result of my suggestion, but I am a baseball fanatic and as a former President of The Bahamas Baseball Association (BBA) in the 1960s and early 1970s, I made tremendous contributions to the development of baseball in The Bahamas, including taking teams on two occasions to compete in the prestigious National Baseball Congress annual tournament in Wichita, Kansas.
I am also so very, very proud off Jazz Chisholm and the success he is currently having en route to becoming a baseball superstar, and the Ministry of Tourism deserves tremendous praise for Bahamian Heritage Night in Miami.
Without question, this effort should be replicated in Atlanta, Georgia, when Jazz and the Marlins visit Atlanta for a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves July 2-4.
As I noted in another article a couple days ago, this would be an ideal opportunity for Astra Armbrister-Rolle, Bahamas Consul General in Atlanta, to arrange for a group of Bahamians in the Atlanta area to collectively attend one of the games with Bahamian flags and give Jazz a Bahamian-style welcome to Atlanta.
Here’s a special invitation from Jazz himself for Bahamian Heritage Night in Miami.
https://www.facebook.com/jaykalylmusic/videos/3018261224944072
