Panamanian Parade Scholarship 2024 Winners

Ralph Roper, Jr., an Airline Skycap, was born in Limon, Costa Rica, to Jamaican parents, Ralph, Sr. and Hilda McFarlane, and immigrated to Panama at 9 years of age. A proud 1954 alumnus of Rainbow City High School, Ralph held Alumni meetings at his Crown Heights home on St. Johns Place, which was a focal stop-off to many new Panamanian entrants before moving on to their final destinations. Norma Maria Shirley Scott of Colegio Abel Bravo was born in Colon to Lionel and Cecilia Scott and married the love of her life, Ralph. Norma and Ralph (nicknamed Jeronimo) immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. They established a loving home as a welcoming Panamanian meeting place known for its fun, dominoes, music, frituras and legendary parties. Notwithstanding the fun, education was the inculcated watchword for their six children, Honorable Judge Sandra, retired Colonel Ralph II, Angela, Casilda, Janice and Gabriela but also to so many other kids who hung out at their home. As members of St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church, Ralph and Norma were very generous with their time and resources to those in need and lived by and instilled upon their children the Biblical maxim - upon whom much is given, much is expected (Luke 12:48).

Lionel James Scott, a very proud active United Automobile Workers (UAW) member was a Ford Auto Mechanic, born in Colon, to James Scott and Luisa Harvey. A quiet, modest and hardworking master mechanic, he met and married the love of his life, Cecilia Ana Maxwell Jordan, who was born in Panamá City to Walter Maxwell and Miriam Jordan, both of Barbadian descent and had 2 daughters, Norma Maria Shirley Roper and Cecilia Clementina March, who had one daughter named Ana. Quite the contrarian, Lionel was a mechanic from his teens and bought cars for his grandchildren though he never bought one for himself. Quite diametrically opposite, Cecilia was quite the socialite and social gadfly who worked at the US Canal Zone Restaurant. Lionel immigrated first as a transfer to US Ford Auto and subsequently sent for the rest of the family. On August 1, 1964, Cecilia, in her customarily impeccably coiffed, attired, accessorized hat and gloves in tow with her formally attired oldest grandchildren — young Sandra and Ralph arrived in Miami via Branniff Airlines and finally on August 3, 1964 they arrived to their new home in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Senora Cecilia very quickly became an active bilingual 1199 Union organizer at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital and a fervent zealous leader and advocate for many old and young throughout her life. Lionel and Cecilia were an inspiration to not merely their family but many people that they encountered from Panamá to their new home in the U.S.