I. He was a teacher.

The principal Commissioner of education.

Professor.

And he ended as governor.

Had gone?

Right after the inauguration.

Yeah.

The emergency meeting.

We couldn't meet payroll.

He inherited a government that was literally broke.

But he turned it around to the point where we went from deficit spending to leaving actual cash.

Not monopoly money.

Real money in the bank.

This person that would freak.

That was his strength.

The man's personality.

And so people believed in him.

He had maintained the dignity of his office.

So people looked up to him.

Regardless of what you had to look up to.

Morsi used to explore towering man, dark and color.

Big feet, huge hands, but with the most gentle approach.

You might think, well, okay, this man is so tall and strong and has this serious face, but there was a completely different side to him.

A humorous side, a caring side.

He was really a gentle giant.

Some of the questions may not.

Yeah.

For shot.

Ready?

In the early 20th century, the Virgin Islands were under U.S.

Navy rule, a time when military investment brought new opportunities to an otherwise struggling economy and drew immigrants from across the Caribbean.

Among them were Ruth Ann, Eliza Skelton, and John Wesley Turnbull, who migrated from Tortola to Saint Thomas, where they met, married and had their first son, Charles Wesley Turnbull.

I was born in Saint Thomas, U.S.

Virgin Islands, at Sugar Valley as the Thomas, near where the Pueblo supermarket is, now.

And that was on February the 5th, 1935.

The land there belonged to the Lockett family.

They had cattle there, and he tended the cattle.

And that area there where the federal supermarket is now.

The Turnbulls eventually settled in Savannah, and their family grew to include four more children Charles Wesley Turnbull.

He was the first sibling.

The family referred to him as Wesley Donald Turnbull, second, Bernard Turnbull, third Mavis Richards, fourth Doris Wells fifth.

All five of us very close siblings.

We grew up with a lot of love in our home.

My earliest memories would be in Savannah.

In those days we were poor, but we didn't know we were poor and we had enough to eat every day.

We had, clothes to wear and, shelter.

And we were happy, in the sense the whole neighborhood was like one big family in the Turnbull family.

Mom stayed home with the children while dad by this time worked as a plumber at the new submarine base still under construction.

My father started to work there from 1941, and he worked there until, the base was finished.

And, I one of my earliest memories to see all the workmen going in the morning around 7:00 with what used to call the breakfast pan and whatnot with the food walking down.

Lots of them.

Devout Methodists, the Turnbull family spent every Sunday at church.

We had belonged to Christchurch Methodist at the Market square.

Every Sunday we went as a family mother, father and five children to church, church.

Sundays, school and back to church at night.

My mother and father never went to the beach, never went to any carnival.

There was just strictly church people.

Education was treated with the same strict discipline in the Turnbull household.

When you came home from school, you had to do your homework first before you go outside to play.

But Wesley was never the one to play outside.

He was always read in books, always used to get all A's in his lessons.

All of my elementary school education took place at the land of Dover Elementary School, a very, very good school.

Then my first grade teacher was Doctor Reina Gabriel, who incidentally also taught me in the 12th grade.

12 years later, she was very influential in my life, as well as the principal who was Mrs.

Eulalie Stevens Peterson, and she was one of the three, teachers who went to court to make sure that women could vote to give the suffrage for women.

The other two were Edith Williams, another great educator, and another educate men on the vessel.

I didn't know how famous they were at the time.

It was later on I found out that they were the ones who did that.

I wanted to be a school teacher from the time I was in the fourth grade.

My mother, brought out, geography or history book and showed me the book, and I opened it, and I saw things about people and places and things, and I said, I love this.

And so from the fourth grade, I wanted to be, a school teacher.

I wanted to be a history school teacher.

Turnbull went from Dover Elementary to Charlotte O'Malley High School, which at the time served grades seven through 12 and was located in what is now the Capitol Building on Saint Thomas.

He graduated with honors in 1952, one of several in that class who would go on to make their mark in Virgin Islands history.

Rudy Krieger, I was called, would, Roebuck Fern Hodge.

All of them were part of that class.

That's one of the very illustrious classes of the Solomon High School's history.

The president of the legislature, the presiding judge of the territorial court, and him as the chief executive of the executive branch.

It is the only class in the history of the Virgin Islands.

And probably the world which remembers of a high school class ended up running the three branches of government.

After graduation, Turnbull taught third grade at Abraham Lincoln School for a year before leaving the Virgin Islands for Virginia.

Hampton Institute, located on the banks of Hampton Roads, Virginia.

He attended Hampton Institute on a full Ford Foundation scholarship, joining a long line of distinguished Hamiltonians with Virgin Islands routes.

Miss Janie Twist attended Hampton, miss.

Bought a sea shelter, attended Hampton, as well as Mrs.

All, a model judge.

Hearts of the student there.

He was two years ahead of me into al-Mahdi Roebuck and Judge Aileen Peterson went to Hampton at the same time I did, and I could go on and on, and we were expected to keep the legacy of those people.

And professors were very strict about it and said, you come from the Virgin Islands.

We have a history of Virgin Islands doing well here.

You have to do well to.

Turnbull did very well, even taking on leadership roles on campus.

I became the vice president of the freshman class and then the following year I became president of the sophomore class.

In my senior year.

I am the president of the graduating class of 1958 at Hampton.

So I learn the nitty gritties of politics there, how to to meet people, how to inspire people to support you and and the deals you have to make to to win an election.

Turnbull also pledged the Gamma Iota chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, known for its legacy of academic excellence and social leadership beyond the campus gates Justin Long.

Social upheaval was intensifying across the South as court rulings, protests, violent backlash and arrests pushed the civil rights movement forward by any number get by at Hampton, it was not as severe as it was elsewhere.

They were more respectful of us than perhaps in other places in the South because of the relationship of the university to the city.

So although there was discrimination, you couldn't go to the what?

What, the Providence or and sit down and so forth.

It was segregation, but it was not a severe, that was in that lawsuit, but it was a segregated and nonetheless, we became activists.

We, we started to, to, to do what we could do to, to to, rebel, against that injustice of, segregation.

And I got to know Rosa Parks.

The time had come to not take it any more.

Turnbull met Rosa Parks at Hampton Institute in the wake of the Montgomery bus boycott, which began after she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white writer.

She was rarely punished by many people.

They didn't employ her and Doctor Alonzo Jim Maroon, who was a Virgin Islander, employed her to work at Hampton as a as a hostess in the faculty cafeteria.

So I got to know and see Rosa Parks when she was working at Hampton.

She was quite proper, kind and caring, and we didn't have much interaction.

But we did get to know her and to see her and to admire her in those days.

Turnbull went on to earn his master's degree in secondary education from Hampton Institute in 1959, then returned home to teach social studies at his alma mater, Charlotte O'Malley High School.

I was inspired by Mr.

J and joined job.

He had started many organization as solid out of high school when he taught there.

And he thought eight years.

So I revived the student council.

They reflect, on many organizations that he had started that had gone dormant.

Turnbull's hard work and leadership earned him a promotion to assistant principal in 1961.

He was also establishing himself on the local political scene, guided by respected legislator.

I'll be, oddly, or a lot of these political genius was that he identified many young growing Virgin Islanders, and Turnbull was constantly, what's considered one of these rising stars politically for many years?

A lot of the older folks like, or I'll be orderly Maduro, Gomez and a lot of those people, who were working on building a new Democratic Party, they, pulled him into the political arena as, a young Democrat.

And so that at that point where he was now becoming a registered Democrat and he was proud to say he was number 11, Turnbull was just the 11th person to register when the election system of the Virgin Islands launched in 1963 under the newly enacted election code, which formally recognized political parties and gave them the authority to register voters and hold primaries, that early registration placed him among the first dozen officially recognized Democrats in the territory.

The following year, in 1964, he was elected as one of 18 delegates who joined the 15 sitting senators in the Virgin Islands first Constitutional Convention.

The convention approved a draft constitution, but it was never adopted by the US Congress.

Meanwhile, Turnbull's career and education continued to rise, and in 1965 he was promoted to principal of Charlotte O'Malley High School.

Although he was the principal, he was willing to go and talk with not just the teachers encoded teaching, but also the the students.

He wasn't one of those folks who, as a principal was in like an ivory tower.

He was always holding his presence on the campus was there.

And also he was a great pincher.

You know, you do something that, you know, upset the process.

You'll get a pinch, you know, and when a big hands of his he was up pinch.

Turnbull's influence extended beyond Charlotte O'Malley High School when he was selected as Assistant commissioner of Education in 1967.

Over the next 12 years, he often stepped up to lead the department through multiple transitions in leadership.

When the commissioner would resign or left or whatever.

Then I became acting commissioner until another commissioner was there.

He focused mostly on students and whether they would be adequately served by the system.

The system itself was under pressure to respond to a growing number of immigrant children, shut out of public schools.

What was happening was that here in the Virgin Islands, although people were coming in and working here doing hard work, their children were not allowed into the public schools.

The turning point came with the federal court case Hosea versus Evans in a landmark 1970 ruling, Judge Alma Christian found that in the absence of any law stating otherwise, all children lawfully residing in the territory were entitled to a public school education.

Prior to that, the school system was a very small, local, public school system, and they had teachers and they had resources to meet that need.

But when this event took place, then they had to all of a sudden ramp up all the schools, build new schools, apply for new federal funding.

And it was very disruptive and very difficult time period for education.

The Commissioner of Education, he resigned.

Phillip Gerard, who had supported efforts to integrate the so-called alien children into the public school system, resigned less than a week into the fall 1970s school year.

Governor Melvin Evans then appointed Charles Turnbull as acting commissioner to steer the department through the crisis.

He had thousands of additional students in the school when school reopened and the question of where to put these students, we appealed to the federal government.

They said there's not much they could do.

However, they had a barge in the Hudson River and they could send the barge down to be used as a school.

The barge later on.

Let's call this opportunity, I don't know if that was the name before it came or we name it Miss Opportunity, but anyhow, we are waiting for this relief to come and we are looking at the harbor every day to see when this barge will arrive.

And I remember one day someone said, we see something coming through, look like it could be the barge.

And indeed it was.

So the badge came.

They were happy.

We have a solution.

So then we went to inspect the spots.

Oh, the situation with me.

They were telling me, watch your head and watch your feet.

I had to dock low and step high to go for them.

We said no, we can't use this for school.

Children would be drowned, children be falling overboard and so forth to be a disaster.

So that was scrapped.

Having this barge to be a school, there was a serious challenge throughout the territory to provide, equal access to all the students that were required to attend school by law, some school in the space station.

So, went into another session.

It took time for us to get out of the double session situation because we got money to build new schools, but it took some time to build the schools while helping to build new schools across the territory.

Turnbull took time to earn his PhD in educational administration in 1976.

He also remained active in the local Democratic Party, consistently elected to key positions over the years.

In January 1979, newly elected Governor Hwang s Louie appointed Turnbull as Commissioner of Education, tasking him with leading a system still in turmoil.

Schools were underfunded, teachers were locked into contract disputes, and students were fed up with poor conditions and overcrowded classrooms.

We all are at fault.

No one is without blame.

He was under siege, but he was an educator and he believed in kids.

That was his fundamental commitment.

Turnbull, in his capacity as commissioner of education at that time, basically, would be the one that served as the bridge over troubled waters.

He always tried to find a way to resolve an issue.

We all must work together to solve the problem and stop pointing the finger and putting the blame as well as we.

We are playing with the destiny of our children.

In 1983, students from Eudora Kan High School staged a protest outside the Department of Education, delivering more than 450 signatures to Commissioner Turnbull, calling for change.

The lack of proper equipment, proper security and classroom situations.

I see Commissioner Turnbull leveled with the students gathered outside his office.

The problems at your school are serious and they have to be corrected.

Some of them can be corrected, undoubtedly without money, as you said there, but others cannot.

He was not afraid to make, you know, serious decisions.

He didn't care about being like, you know, decisions had to be made or made.

Even though he was uncivil to political leadership of the territory.

He was always very sensitive to the needs of teachers and students at the school level.

He left the mark because he had to build schools throughout the territory to take them off of, the, the decision to split sessions.

And that itself was a was a humongous task.

Many of the schools, that are currently in operation synchro were built during that period of time.

I found them to be very effective.

And we ended we got off of double session while he was commissioner, and I were very grateful for that.

I found him to be accessible.

Turnbull left the Department of Education in 1987 at the end of the Louis administration.

When the time came, when he was leaving as commissioner of education, he said to me, don't let anybody talk you into becoming commissioner of education.

That job kills people and makes them a walk in medicine cabinet.

Still, Turnbull never stepped away from the Department of Education entirely.

He remained active in shaping policy, and was elected to the Board of Education in 1992 and again in 1996.

He also continued teaching at the University of the Virgin Islands.

I started to teach there soon after I got my doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1976.

So during the time I was Assistant Commissioner of Education and Commissioner of Education, I was on the adjunct faculty of the University of the Virgin Islands, then the College of the Virgin Islands.

So and that lasted from 1977 until 1998.

It is from the university that I move into the governorship.

I was drafted, drafted as a kind word because, nobody wanted to take on Schneider at the time.

In 1998, Governor Roy Schneider and they steam surgeon and former health commissioner was gearing up for reelection because Schneider had done a reasonably good job in taking us through Hurricane Marilyn.

They were calling him Hurricane Roy, referring to all his actions to, address hurricanes.

But he was not popular, not because of his policies, but because of his personality.

And the Democratic Party, the largest party in the Virgin Islands, had an obligation to put forward a candidate.

I had approached numerous people.

I would be the candidate, and they all didn't think that they could be Snyder and declined.

And somehow, someone looked at my record and found that I had never lost an election.

Just run for this, position of constitutional convention, Board of education, board of elections, and, and numerous other, area.

So this I had thought about running for the Senate because I was getting ready to retire from the university, and I said, let me go to the Senate.

And I said, no, no, no, no, no, you don't go down.

There you go.

We need someone to run.

And you come here, you run for that.

So I that's why I say I was drafted.

He said, you know, you are the best person we could find to run, so you better run.

Turnbull was an institutional Democrat.

He had been raised in the party.

He had served in every conceivable territory.

A committee member of the boards.

And any time the elections came, Charles Turnbull was there on the firing line.

His decision to make a challenge brought long standing Democrats who had decided they weren't going to get involved in politics, come out when they first started the campaign, he came to Saint Croix, met with me and others, and we agreed that we'll take him around and introduce him to people and that type of thing.

At the ending point, of course, he had to select a lieutenant governor, and I was asked.

I didn't say yes because I was in the legislature.

I was approaching my third term and I felt I, I needed to complete some of the things that I'd started in the legislature.

The campaign period, 63 year old Turnbull with former Senator Gerard Luz, James Junior.

Instead, he was a well-known name.

I thought it was a good selection.

Brought Saint Croix to the table, which is, you know what?

You know why you choose you lieutenant governors is for political reasons.

Meanwhile, Schneider entered the race with a new running mate, Finance Commissioner Juan Sentinel, after a well-publicized rift with his first term Lieutenant Governor Kenneth Mapp.

His original voting strength, unsinkable, was because of cat and mouse, and a lot of people turned away from him.

Mapp himself supported Turnbull's campaign for governor.

I told him I would go out and raise money, and we ran a series of full page ads.

We went to a photo firm, and we got a lot of photos of people that look like people in the Virgin Islands refinery.

Folks, nurses, teachers.

And so we used their photos.

I'm a nurse, and I'm supporting, Charles Turnbull and Gerard James and blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah.

And so it was interesting that one of the operatives for the Schneider campaign, was Walter Brune at the time.

He set out to find these folks, and, they couldn't find them.

And, eventually then Schneider started publishing these full page ads that, they would pay $25 of anybody who could find these people and introduce them, and that they were stock photos.

But by that point, that was it was way too late.

The Turnbull campaign also leaned into the contrast between the incumbent and the challenger.

There was an arrogance about Snyder in terms of how he spoke to people, how he dealt with people.

The exact opposite of Turnbull.

Well, Doctor Toner was accepted as, knowledgeable and friendly and positive.

The incumbent governor had some very negative, vibes, in this Inquirer community.

I took it upon myself to campaign against Roy Snyder.

So at that time, I wasn't necessarily campaigning for Charles Turnbull.

My campaign was against Joyce.

Negative.

His attitude, I thought, was arrogant, unbecoming of of a of a governor.

And that led to some of the most unfortunate mannerisms and discussions and treatment of people who are respected by the community.

When that collapsed, Snyder's public support collapsed with it.

One sign of that collapse came at the 1998 Emancipation Day ceremony at Bodo Park, when a scuffle broke out between Saint Croix Senator Adelbert Bryan and Governor Snyder's security team.

It began when Brian, who was listed as a speaker on the program, tried to address the crowd.

Bird started walking towards the microphone to speak, and he was restrained by the governor's security officers.

It just got out of control.

The activity deteriorated into, an ugly scene, from where I was sitting.

People from Saint Thomas rushed to the airport because there were huggable there.

There's going to be a big raid.

And Frederick said, that and did the 50th anniversary activities.

It was, of course, all blamed on Snyder.

Snyder was not popular, and so it was worsened by the fact that the hero of Frederick's dead bird brand had to be restrained off of the bandstand, and it took off from there.

And so on the radio, his good friend Marion Moorehead was screaming about how even a dog could get elected governor.

As opposed to Snyder.

And that was the moment, the way we took the campaign, the Democratic Party.

The following day, July 4th, 1998, the Democratic Party introduced its challenger, Charles Wesley Turnbull, at the Saint John Celebration parade.

He was dressed with a typical, you know, Charles Turnbull look that I came to know, which was he had like a size 14 shoe and he'd wear these big black sort of half boots kind of things for his feet.

I mean, there were enormous.

The man was tall.

I mean, he was it was a towering man.

He had on a camouflage shirt and a camouflage hat.

This is carnival.

You can't you can't go down the street looking like you're on bivouac or something.

So we went.

We bought him, carnival hat and beautiful carnival flower shirt, you know, great colors, everything.

And brought them to the dressing room.

Got them all look and carnival.

And we started to go into his home in March.

Campbell, who suites of Saint John and past the bandstand.

And there was a shock on Snyder's face to see his his fraternity brother emerging.

Or the Kennedy.

He couldn't believe it.

And I yelled up.

I said, Governor Snyder, this is your replacement right here, Doctor Charles Turnbull.

And they all looked down and they were sort of laughing and sort of mocking.

I mean, they weren't that bad, but, you know, they were certainly not feel threatened by it at all.

So we marched on and we went through the whole parade and, you know, he just as it as he moved on, he got what it is he had to do.

And people liked him.

You know, I've always said in politics, the most important thing is that the people have to like you.

They'll accept anything is wrong with your imperfections, or they can forgive you for anything.

But they have to like you.

So they liked him.

And that was the key to his success.

And the rest is history.

He became the governor.

He upset Schneider and sent Schneider into tears on election night.

I'm going to read, You know that the courage live.

On November 3rd, 1998, Turnbull and his running mate Gerard Luz James Junior won both districts.

They nearly doubled Schneider's vote count on Saint Croix and narrowly edged him out in the Saint Thomas Saint John district.

People just wanted change.

It was just a lot of tension and the Schneider administration and a lot of tension between Governor Schneider and myself as well.

People just wanted to move on.

And.

On January 4th, 1999, Charles Wesley Turnbull was sworn in as the sixth elected governor of the United States Virgin Islands, taking the oath from his longtime friend and former CIA class of 52 classmate, Judge Vern Hodge.

I was so happy.

God.

But the challenges ahead were immediate and severe.

Something the new governor addressed in his first state of the territory speech just days after taking office.

Words are barely adequate to describe the financial conditions of the government.

I have inherited, as a result of the general poor management and willful misdeeds on the part of the previous administration.

This government faces a projected fiscal year 1999 general fund shortfall of $246 million.

The government's lack of an adequate cash flow is a serious problem, raising the unwelcome probability of peerless paydays.

He was given a government that was literally broke all the accounts of the government married so that he was assuming government that was basically nonfunctional.

We had to put on the brakes.

Hold the line.

The governor had the foresight to name a financial team.

That financial team consisted of persons with many different professional background.

Although we had accountants, we had, Mr.

IRA mills, he was the budget director.

We had Mr.

Nathan Simmons, we had Mr.

Lewis, Lolo Willis, the director of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

We had Mr.

Roy Martin.

He was the tax assessor.

We had Mrs.

Joel Malloy.

She was the governor's chief of staff.

Mrs.. Larry Mills with economic development.

Mr.

Campbell, her assistant to the governor, worked with Francis.

He was administrator from Saint Croix.

Map director, public finance authority.

Miss Gloria waterman.

She was administrator from Saint Croix.

Joanne Barry, the director of personnel.

Karen Andrews, chief negotiator.

And we had Mr.

Alex Simmons, too.

He was assistant to the governor and myself.

Commissioner, finance.

And he invited all of us.

And we sat down from day one and started to look at where we were financially.

We finally decided to help us out.

We needed to get a loan, and so we had to go to the legislature because we could not operate on ourself and decide that we going to get a loan.

We have to go to the legislature and convince the senators that, yes, we were going to get a loan in order to bring government up to a some kind of financial solvency.

For the time being.

In April 1999.

Governor Turnbull signed act number 6278 into law after its passage by the 23rd legislature, authorizing the government of the Virgin Islands to borrow up to 35 million strictly to cover payroll during cash shortfalls.

The act also established a 90 day amnesty program.

The thing we did to get us out of the quagmire was we had tax amnesties, both for property taxes and other, taxes under the bureau, which helped us tremendously because people would pay the taxes.

They didn't have to pay the penalty.

And, you know, and that was good and interest and that was good.

Once Governor Turnbull decided that, we were growing in revenue, he wanted to float the bonds.

And then he sent out a request for $100 million in bond proceeds.

We didn't think that the 100 million would solve the fiscal issues that faced us at the time.

I was one of those that voted against $100 million.

And then we developed a working relationship.

The governor, decided we would go see it, just how much these bonds would be.

We finally floated those bonds at 300 million, which was good for the territory.

It was good for everybody.

We were able to pay some back pay to the teachers.

Governor Turnbull also signed a memorandum of understanding with the federal government, committing to a five year financial recovery plan to eliminate long term debt and achieve a balanced budget.

And the governor traveled to Washington, D.C., to urge the Federal Emergency Management Agency to forgive or restructure roughly 200 million in federal hurricane related that owed by the territory.

While the administration pressed forward with efforts to stabilize the economy.

Tensions were brewing between the governor and his lieutenant governor.

I hate to say, but I think it was a marriage of convenience.

As I recall, the friction started where the lieutenant governor wanted to take control, and once in.

And the governor said, no.

There's only one pope in Rome.

And that started the friction right at the beginning of a grander vision for all of the Virgin Islands.

My assessment of the situation was, conversation occurred between the governor and this afternoon, governor, prior to the election, which allowed the lieutenant governor to make decisions concerning who would head the leadership of certain government departments and so forth.

Instead of going to basically began to exercise that authority.

Once the government was in place, the governor advocated that we fire the people and hire the people who were in the campaign.

Some of the people were pushing the lieutenant governor to have Governor Turnbull fire some of the people.

Jimmy O'Brien and I think were the two major persons on senior staff that, advised against that.

Mrs.

Malloy was herself warned the governor Turnbull, that there had been a recent case in Minnesota in which people being fired arbitrarily for clearly political reasons, could not occur.

And that he should be very careful about it.

But they were it had become a problem in terms of the relationship.

So finally the governor agreed, terminated a bunch of people.

They went to court when the court case was called.

The lieutenant governor declined to appear.

Governor Turnbull looked at me and said, you, me, you're going to have to take one for the team.

So I had to go.

27 former government employees sued Governor Turnbull's administration in federal court in 1999, claiming they were fired because of their political ties to Snyder.

Literally, the government was beaten badly in a court judge's decision.

The only people that the court ruled that could be fired were people under my responsibility.

Public relations people.

All of that was returned up to the public relations people after the payroll unwillingness to arbitrarily fire people from their positions, cause the bad blood between them, and resulted in what came about in a meeting in government House in Croix.

We were all in the meeting.

Then the governor said to all the senior staff to step outside, and it was just the governor, the governor and the senators.

My observation was, the lieutenant governor I lost.

James was was mild mannered, when he came in.

But he started he was passionate about, some particular issues.

He was quite passionate about certain things that was going on in the administration.

He felt that he was being disenfranchized, and he brought that into this meeting that was specifically, to have discussions with the legislature regarding the bonding issue, regarding issues of concern, for many of the senators in there, because they had their individual concerns.

Governor Turnbull was, annoyed, when Lieutenant Governor James came in and and shared his concerns and, at one point he sort of slammed his hand on the table.

I felt that there was a need to sort of intervene in a discourse that was taking place that seem to have been escalating.

And, what I did was I stood up and I said, you know, gentlemen, you could have that discussion, within the confinement of your respective offices and not necessarily, engage in that here.

And I think we should break for lunch.

Unfortunately, that may have been the icing on the cake.

From there.

I don't think the relationship ever while he was in office, the two of them went off.

It ever was in peril.

Despite turbulence behind the scenes.

The territory began to see signs of recovery.

By 2000, changes in the US tax law, married automatically in the Virgin Islands own tax code, created an opening for high income individuals to become bonafide residents of the territory and pay their federal income taxes locally.

The influx of new wealthy taxpayers proved a boon to the economy, generating millions in additional revenue and creating the momentum that would lead to the establishment of the Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority.

Wealthy taxpayers who wanted to live here could live here, and they could claim residents of the Virgin Islands and pay their taxes here, which in some instances was, they had to pay it the way the United States, it would be less because, you know, they didn't have to pay state tax here.

So they saved money.

So they were paying the income tax here.

And that helped us to bend.

We collected a lot of money.

So that helped get us out of where, you know, we were.

In his 2001 state of the territory address.

Governor Turnbull highlighted several accomplishments, including paying over 50% of the government's inherited debt to vendors, bringing the government current and issuing income tax refunds, increasing revenues collected by the Internal Revenue Bureau by $40 million over the previous fiscal year, and executing a new contract with the American Federation of Teachers that delivered the first salary increase for teachers in seven years.

The salary increases granted teachers and other school personnel was not as much as they deserved or desired, nor was it as much as we wanted to give them.

However, it was the best we could do at the time due to our difficult financial condition.

Earlier, I declared a state of emergency to repair schools and purchase equipment and supplies.

As a result, our schools are generally in the best physical condition they have been in for many years.

But deeper problems lingered within the territory's public school system.

That same year, the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools formally notified the territory's three public high schools.

Central High on Saint Croix and Charlotte O'Malley and Evander Durkin on Saint Thomas, that their accreditation would end on December 31st because of various long standing deficiencies, including the lack of a site based management system.

It could have been tomorrow.

It could have been any other governor, because the fact remains that the Mid-State Association that accredited our schools said to us and in the Senate also that our schools, meaning the high schools, have no way of showing they have some authority in the school system, meaning they couldn't buy anything, they couldn't, pay for anything in the schools without going through the red tape of the commissioner.

And so they wanted to see some type of, site based management, which was one of the major ones.

Accreditation is a big series of things that you got to check off the state of the buildings, the type of instruction, the quality of instruction.

These are all factors that goes into accreditation.

As the Turnbull administration faced a looming loss of accreditation and public education.

The now number one is on fire explosion.

The nation experienced a historic tragedy that altered the course of history.

On September 11th, 2001, terrorists carried out coordinated attacks on the United States, killing nearly 3000 people and grounding air travel nationwide.

The disruption slowed the territory's tourism dependent economy.

But Governor Turnbull pressed ahead with his commitment to pay out long delayed step increases for unionized government employees.

A measure he had signed into law earlier that summer.

He also issued an executive order raising the pay ceiling for exempt employees, citing union contracts that had left some subordinates earning more than their supervisors.

The change significantly increased salaries for hundreds of exempt workers, including his top staff and commissioners.

And in late 2001, the federal government officially forgave the last $45 million of the Hurricane Hugo loan.

It debt that had burdened the territory since the storm struck in 1989.

People had confidence in us, know that we couldn't do the job.

All those who might have felt that we couldn't do it.

Turnbull was a novice.

These are the people.

May be novices.

They'll know they had the confidence in us because when they saw what we were able to do, how we were able to turn things, pay, then those pay income taxes that hadn't been paid for years.

People got, you know, confidence that, yes, we were on the right track for the kind of government that they wanted to see.

In the Virgin Islands.

But 2002 brought new setbacks for the Turnbull administration.

Carnival Cruise Lines, the world's largest cruise operator, pulled out of Saint Croix, citing crime and passenger safety concerns.

But some believe the pullout was payback for Governor Turnbull's decision to cancel a $31 million deal that would have allowed Carnival and Royal Caribbean to fund a retail center and expand the Crown Bay Dock on Saint Thomas to accommodate larger ships.

They were going to pay all the moneys.

They were going to develop it, and they're going to make sure that their ships, you know, come with that port.

I didn't think it was a bad idea because I don't care how much you develop.

You can't go to no place.

You can't take it up and going, you you you ready to leave?

You got to leave it there.

In rejecting the proposal, Turnbull said that it was important that the Virgin Islands maintain full control of its harbor and harbor development.

The governor felt at the time that no, that's our put in a foreign country or another country, not a group with some authority in your place.

I didn't buy the argument because we have laws, you know, you can.

They can do no more than you let them do.

And so they got upset.

And I didn't like the, the, the apostle was that okay.

So we can do that.

We ain't going Saint Croix you know.

And so in quite a time was hunting because it was very a limited amount of ships going in period.

Also in 2002, Norwegian Cruise Lines canceled port calls on Saint Croix for at least the next two seasons, and Holland America dropped the Big Island from its itinerary that same year.

At one point in time, Governor Turnbull, under his administration.

Cruise ship, didn't have to pay to go into Saint Croix wave that was waived completely, yet they were not going because of their argument was cruise ships will not be coming to Saint Croix because you want it.

They told us a plane.

You say you have to sharpen your product, and when that happens, the passengers will determine whether they want to go to Saint Croix, Saint Thomas, Saint Martin Hall, where that blow to the economy was matched by one in education as local officials lost their appeal and the Middle States Association upheld its decision to strip the territory's three public high schools of accreditation.

I have to be a bad feeling for him if he lose accreditation under your watch and you educator, I not only educator, you're the commissioner.

That's not a good thing to to happen, you know, it means that you failed.

Turnbull's setbacks became flashpoints for critics leading into his 2002 reelection campaign.

A year is a lot of issues that didn't work out for his administration that, you know, other politicians recognized and they saw blood, so they all jumped in it and figured they could take out Turnbull.

Turnbull's always been underestimated, always.

Governor Turnbull faced seven contenders in the 2002 general election, including his own lieutenant governor, Gerard Lopez James.

There were some differences over some some issues.

It just didn't work out, you know.

And, therefore, he chose to run, you know, against me.

And I chose, Senator Richard.

So be the running mate.

And this time around, he said, yes, I believe that we can work together to make this, team the best team that there is.

This is the team that, you know, the team you can trust.

Turnbull and his team remained confident.

They saw the crowded field as an advantage rather than a hindrance.

When you are running against a large number of opponents, they are all split up.

It would be easier to unseat a sitting governor if there's one strong opponent.

But when you're going to have seven, we were basically rather confident that they would split the anti Turnbull vote at 6 or 7 different ways.

The indication was that Turnbull would hold his own.

And we had turned the corner financially.

We felt that the campaign was so strong.

His popularity was so strong that he would have won it in one shot.

The slogan of one shot became very popular and people understood what it meant.

They understood that having a run off election and and having to to make compromises, etcetera, etcetera, was not in the best interests of our society.

And therefore, having the governor win on the first go round was in the best interests of all of us.

The one shot message headed smart.

Turnbull and Richards won with 17,545 votes, securing 50.3%, while their closest challengers, the Young and Arnold, received 8618 votes, or 24.7%.

Governor Turnbull was always well liked and so I think the people wanted somebody they could trust.

They felt they could trust him.

I brought the synchro votes in those days, and I think the people, I guess, thought that they could trust me as well.

Public trust was tested a month later when the 24th legislature, in its final session, approved pay raises recommended by Turnbull Senators from $65,000 to $85,000.

The lieutenant governor from $75,000 to $115,000, and the governor from $80,000 to $135,000.

There was a big outburst about that.

And so, leading into the to the inauguration, people very disappointed.

And they expressed their concern in a way of protest and also your life and your loss.

And today you want to raise money for those that work.

No tax shares.

I know there was a labor protest taking place in led by Positive Nelson, and they were beating the drums and Pat Nelson with his locks flying in the air.

He was the ringleader.

I think he had a union at the time, and he used that as his way to bring about some of the protest.

The intent was to disrupt the inauguration activities.

I didn't plan to go down there and do all that jumping around like I got a case of the heebie jeebies.

But you know, the spirit, the drumming took a hold of me.

And to be honest, I didn't realize until days later how I actually behaved.

But I felt like all of what I was doing was, was was chastising and doing words at him to let him know that this is not right.

It was awkward.

It was tough.

You have your family and everybody's there to celebrate the inauguration of the governor and the lieutenant governor, but you're distracted and you have to focus.

Governor Turnbull believed that that was part of the democracy, that people had a right to protest.

It proves that we are blessed to live in a land where people can protest and move towards the demonstration they want.

You can get mad at the people if they have some kind of right.

For me that he earned marks.

I learned to respect Governor Time.

I learned to, even though we disagree.

It doesn't mean I have to disrespect.

Heeding public outcry.

Governor Turnbull vetoed the pay raises in the days following the Saint Croix protest.

He went on to cut salaries for exempt employees between 2 and 10% by executive order.

In the summer of 2003, after revenue shortfalls and other financial pressures pushed the government back into a deficit.

They couldn't meet the payroll.

It was one of those things is either you going to scale back or people have to go home.

So he chose the least of the pain.

It was based on a percentage, you know.

So the higher you made, the more you know, the salary was rolled back.

All that was done to bring down the cost of government.

By year's end, Turnbull had scrapped the entire fiscal year 2004 budget passed by the legislature.

There was so much extravagance in the legislation that it we couldn't pay it.

And at the time, he was trying to stick to the directives by the fiscal management team and making sure we didn't overspend.

And so that had a lot to do with his decision to veto that, that that bill.

To his credit.

I mean, he did not rehire people.

It was the first time that we saw a decline in the amount of people hired in government.

I can give him credit in taking responsibility for a busted budget, and I'm not letting it go through like you have to stand to ground.

And sometimes, unfortunately, because of the bickering between the legislative and executive branch, they said someone would try to make the governor seem like the bad person.

But you have to be brave enough to take an action and to justify your action, even if it's not popular at the time.

In his 2004 state of the territory address, Governor Turnbull warned lawmakers that he would veto any bill passed by the legislature that added unfunded or unwarranted spending.

He also rejected a proposal by delegate to Congress Donna Christensen for a federally appointed chief financial officer, calling it reactionary and regressive.

Christensen and Turnbull both testified in Washington in 2004, and again two years later, before the House Committee on Resources, she in support of a CFO, and he firmly opposed.

The bill, eventually passed the House but stalled in the Senate and never became law.

Governor Turnbull and I had a major disagreement over the CFO, but that never interfered with our relationship of being able to work together.

We could disagree on things and still have a good, productive working relationship.

He made a difference with respect to the federal government because people like to work with him.

People like to work with him and because he was such a charming person.

People would go out of their way to do something for him.

Governor Turnbull spoke and things turned around.

The US Department of Interior.

Offered their assistance for the government of the Virgin Islands, and it was a very good thing.

That support included technical assistance, funding and training opportunities that helped the Turnbull administration modernize its financial practices, ultimately leading to the completion of long overdue audits and restoring credibility with bond markets and federal agencies.

The federal government in 2004 forgave its $185 million community disaster loan to the territory for damage inflicted by Hurricane Marilyn.

A major win for the Turnbull administration after years of debt relief efforts.

The federal government, FEMA, recognize that we were serious cut in our budget, okay, curtailing our expenses, and we were showing them that we were going to become solvent and do the things that needed to be done.

And we had interior helping us over time.

The Turnbull administration also advanced major projects through the Public Finance Authority.

We use moneys from the tobacco settlement agreement that the Virgin Islands had, and we created bonds that produce the construction of the cardiac care center at Long Louis, and they come and cancer Center in Saint Thomas.

We floated Gavi bonds, which are bonds that are supported by federal highway funds, to do the Mumbai Jew Flood Mitigation program.

The construction, including the cushions that bypass the construction of roads on Singh, Thomas and John, and the inner Hyde Pond cargo facility on the island of Saint John.

We produced a significant amount of money that built for new sewage treatment facilities throughout the Virgin Islands.

Governor Turnbull undertook a historic restoration project that he created based on the gems of historic buildings, particularly public buildings and the Virgin Islands.

And we funded their restoration, all like the Danish school in Frederik Stead and Catherine Bird, the Diamond School at Westport Road and Queen Mary Highway.

A whole host of them across the territory.

We found new monies to put to projects that were dormant because of the way we did the investment portfolio, and we were able to accomplish the.

For the first time ever, the Virgin Islands received an investment grade rating on its bonds, which was significant.

The Turnbull administration is also credited with extending the Christian said boardwalk to the seaplane dock, part of a broader effort to revitalize the waterfront, boost tourism and improve public access to the harbor.

Beyond infrastructure, Governor Turnbull also focused on cultural identity, formally establishing by executive order the Division of Virgin Islands Cultural Education to bring local history and heritage into the public school curriculum so children as young as preschool and kindergarten who learn about cultural music or food or dancing and all of these things.

He cared for it all.

He understood it all.

He knew how important it was for Virgin Islanders to recognize who they are and their history, and how, everything they do today is making history.

Another hallmark of the Turnbull years was the creation of the Virgin Islands Supreme Court, a reform proposed by Senator Carlton, though, and unanimously passed by the 25th legislature and signed into law by Governor Turnbull.

Given the territory full control over its judicial appeals for the first time.

Prior to that, you know, when something happened, at the, Superior Court, we then had to appeal abroad.

Okay.

Now we have the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands.

So we have a local place to go as an appeals court.

That is historic.

But Turnbull's historic achievements were somewhat shadowed by troubling allegations that surfaced during his final years in office.

As has always been historically proven, in the second term, when you see a lot of shenanigans starting to take place.

A special investigative report by the Virgin Islands Daily News in 2005 allege that government officials helped steer hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts to a company that used forged signatures and falsified documents, while failing to complete the work and receiving repeated extensions and payments.

The government became aware when it appeared in the newspaper, and it's a scandal that rocked his administration.

The federal investigation that followed the Daily News report led to indictments in November 2007, and later criminal convictions for former Planning and Natural Resources Commissioner Dean Plaskett and former Property and Procurement Commissioner Mark Biggs.

These were two of the youngest members of his cabinet, two who he saw, as you know, rising rising stars to get involved in this situation, even though he never told me personally.

I can tell by the sense that he was hurt.

During the final months of the Turnbull administration.

Deputy Chief of Staff Alex Simmons resigned and was later charged and convicted of embezzling more than $1 million in government funds.

This is a gentleman that, you know, served from the entire eight years as the governor's deputy chief of staff.

And again, you could feel the betrayal when we finally sat down and started getting a good overview of the depth of the deception and the stealing that was taking place out of the government as a town.

He was devastated.

He kept on saying, this is an embarrassment.

How can I tell the public that it happened only on my watch, on under me?

The governor himself.

I don't think you could find a more honest person.

I mean, there was never an opportunity or a hint of corruption with Charles Dumbrell.

Still, Turnbull faced a renewed wave of public backlash in the final days of his second term for signing the infamous act number 6905.

In it were salary increases for a governor, lieutenant governor, senators.

And of course, that was a big ruckus.

The bill also tied senators salaries to the lowest paid cabinet member and retroactively boosted their retirement benefits.

And at other rates, $600 million in bonds to help stabilize the government's pension system.

People felt he wait until the last minute to raid the Treasury, and that was far from the truth.

Turnbull's finance commissioner maintains that the governor only signed the controversial bill to comply with new rules from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, also known as Gasb, which sets national reporting requirements for state and local governments.

The Gasb statement at that time was that US state and local governments who had unfunded liability in their pension, plan pension program had to show how they were going to fund the Don.

Beginning with the 2007 audit, as your federal funds would be withheld to address the requirement, Turnbull's financial team developed a $600 million bond plan to stabilize the Government Employees Retirement System and sought support from the legislature.

We met with the senators many different times over at Frenchmen Reef.

For months we met with them.

The majority of the senators in the Senate, the ruling body at that time, it was the Democratic majority met with the governor and the governor's financial team to discuss collaborate.

The legislature countered by saying that the they wanted some things as well, and that's usually a process where it is fair exchange.

Senators at the time was interested in a raise.

Governor Turnbull said to them, I am going home.

I don't need no salary increase.

They convinced them that for you, for those who will come after and he recommended, okay, 100,000 because his salary at that time was $80,000.

So you recommended 100,000.

The next thing we knew, this salary increase for governors had gone up to $150,000.

And the senators had attached a whole plan for them.

I don't know who you recommended that to.

You didn't recommended me while I sat in the meetings with him.

So that could have been to his, his staff, his financial team.

But when we discussed with Governor Turnbull the $150,000, there was no pushback.

It was retroactive to a certain period.

And he'll get a lump sum during that time.

So he benefited that way.

And he also benefited from the retirement increase of 6905, became one of the most controversial piece of legislation passed during the time that I serve as a senator.

We was summoned to the legislative chambers on December 28, some three days after Christmas Day of the 25th, to go into special session to address this piece of legislation.

We were not an organized minority caucus.

We were just the the non majority senators.

We decided that we will do everything within those rules to delay taking any action on the proposal to provide an opportunity for the new legislature, which would have been the 27 coming in to act upon it, and more importantly, for it to be properly digested by the community and the public at large.

Once we arrived in chambers at the legislature, we realized that, some six members of the majority caucus were present.

They had two that were not dare.

Senator.

Never.

James.

The Senator, Craig Bashagha, who had just lost his At-Large seat with six members.

There was no way that they could meet a quorum.

We decided to get in my office, the non majority senators and to wait and to monitor via the television screen.

The next move of the majority caucus in their attempt to convene this particular session.

Although there were only six majority senators on the floor, they were joined by one non majority senator in the person of Senator Adler.

Fancy Dennis Dorgan.

So thereby there were seven members, but still one short one of the non majority senators that was in the office with us then former Senate nominee John Baptist.

He said that he's gone, leaving our office and he's going down to the bathroom.

But the next thing I recognized was an announcement, John Baptist entering onto the floor of the legislature, thereby, there are now eight persons on the floor.

And the Senate president calls for a roll call to establish a quorum.

The rest of us who were not on the floor headed to the floor because it was important for us to have our votes placed on the record of the legislature for this particular session.

One of the first motion was made by then Senator Susan Austin, a white senior, seconded by myself, to table the bill on the agenda until the incoming 27th legislature, a motion that was made and failed, thereby allowed for the progress of the bill to move forward.

There were six who voted against John Baptist.

Senator Jon Batiste was in the minority, but he too, I believe, felt that it was the right thing to do and cross the line and join the majority senators and voted in the affirmative.

It was seven six.

It was a tied vote.

It was December 28th.

It after 10:00 at night when that was passed and signed by Governor Turnbull the next day.

I understand the plan, and I understand that the initiative perhaps came from the Senate, but he didn't have to go along with it.

He did.

And, you know, that's just going to be more that's going to be part of his legacy.

He signed the bill because he wanted to ensure that he met that Gadsby statement to show how we were going to start funding down unfunded liability.

600 million was our only request to the senators.

What was added after that was not Governor Turn was making.

However, as the governor of the Virgin Islands, he signed the bill.

Not that he came up with that.

Governor Turnbull's story in many ways is best told through the territory's financial condition.

At the end of his term.

At the end of the day, the governor is is seen as having but balanced the budget after inheriting what was some call it hell.

We inherited a deficit and we left with a soft loss.

According to independent audits of the US Virgin Islands government's finances, when Turnbull took office in January 1999, the government's finances were deep in the red.

The General Fund, the core account used to operate the territory, ended that fiscal year with a $345 million deficit.

Fast forward to the end of Turnbull's second term in 2006, the General Fund reported an unreserved fund balance of $107 million and total balances across all governmental accounts, including capital projects, debt service and other restricted funds topped $580 million.

I do very and when he was leaving office, the financial people came in and said to him, don't know, we took over office and the government was on the brink of collapse.

And today I could tell you that we have $600 million spread around the various accounts throughout this government.

And you have literally turning the government over in very good financial shape.

All of us in his office clapped it, you know, you could see his eyes turned glassy.

That was the ultimate tribute to it.

Upon leaving government House, Turnbull continued to shape the territory's future.

Serving as a delegate to the Virgin Islands Constitutional Convention for the fifth time since the first 1 in 1964.

He's always been involved in the Constitutional Convention.

He been one of the main pushers of this, you know, decision being made about, you know, formalizing a constitution for the Virgin Islands.

Many people consider the Constitutional Convention as failures because no draft that we approve in the convention got the approval of the electorate.

But I don't think the conventions of our failure is because many of the things that were proposed, if you read all the drafts of the various conventions, you will find that they will.

Many of the things were put into effect piecemeal along the way by either the federal government or the local government.

Turnbull's legacy became a lasting fixture in 2011, when he was awarded the Virgin Islands Medal of Honor, and the new regional library on Saint Thomas was named in his honor.

The Charles Wesley Turnbull Regional Public Library, he being a historian, being an educator, it seemed very fitting that this would be a great tribute to him.

He was a regional library and it was meant to carry information and be the hub of information for the region.

He never reached there what it was intended to be.

It never came about.

It was never dedicated.

That was a frustration on his part.

He was disappointed.

After Charles Wesley Turnbull.

Congratulations.

In 2015, Turnbull was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of the Virgin Islands, recognizing more than four decades of leadership in education and public service.

It was a hometown tribute from the institution where he once taught.

Three years later, he was commemorated at the house he once occupied.

Turnbull's official gubernatorial portrait was unveiled at government House in 2018, alongside that of former Governor Roy Lester, Senator John C Miller, and an excellent job capturing the living governor.

Turnbull commissioned under Governor Kenneth iMap.

It now hangs in government House on Saint Thomas and Saint Croix, a permanent acknowledgment of Turnbull's place in Virgin Islands history.

The folks in the Virgin Islands loved Governor Turnbull in and out of office.

He was very charismatic.

So, a wonderful, wonderful person.

Outside of public office, Turnbull spent his later years living a quiet private life, spending time with family, traveling wherever he traveled.

He collect books and don't ever go in a book store with my brother.

And thank you.

Going to get out.

My brother used to say I was in a book store.

Charles didn't drive, so I became like his chauffeur.

So I would take him just about any place that he needed to go.

First Tuesday at Walgreens, senior citizens get 20%.

I know, Kwabena, I want you to pick me up at 9:00 because we're going straight to Walgreens.

So and so and so.

Not that I had to go to buy that discount, but.

And Joe, he look forward to it because he met a lot of seniors and people that he knew.

And sometimes when I go I'll meet him.

So he says, how long you've been here?

I said, from the time they opened.

But he enjoyed doing that.

It was a part of him.

So was his commitment to the local chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, which he helped establish.

He was very involved, especially in Martin Luther King March.

You know, he was there from the very first.

Whenever he was here.

He was always, always involved in any of the chapter activities.

Charles Wesley Turnbull died on July 3rd, 2022, following an undisclosed illness.

He was 87.

It was peaceful.

You know, he did it his way.

He was always a private person and he wanted his death to be private.

And it was.

It was private.

His farewell was a public one, a state funeral that included public viewings at government House in Christian said on Saint Croix.

The battery and cruise bay on Saint John and Government House on Saint Thomas, allowing the public to pay their respects.

And me?

Me.

He was laid to rest on August 13th, 2022, following a memorial service at Christ Church Methodist on Saint Thomas, his lifelong church home.

Family, friends, community members and dignitaries from across the Greater Virgin Islands, the broader Caribbean and the US mainland gathered to honor the life and legacy of the territory's sixth elected governor.

First thing I want you to do today is to clap for our dear governor, Charles Washington.

The thing, the thing about this remarkable individual was not as a governor, but as a person, because he led with his humanity.

As most of you know.

I ran against Governor Turnbull in 2002, and I lost, handily.

But the gracious man that he was, he called me up and he said a good run.

And that to me represented Governor Turnbull.

The civility of politics, the concern of the community.

My earliest memories of my Uncle Wesley go back to my infancy, when I actually believed he was Santa Claus.

And in a way, he was Santa Claus, always giving rare and thoughtful gifts from wherever he traveled.

Always filling the room with his jovial and distinctive laugh.

He also was a proud belong on.

He will be greatly missed on both sides of the Virgin Islands.

But while he may be physically gone, the memory of his love and kindness remains.

And may the soul of Charles Turnbull, our gentle giant, our historian, our educator, our servant leader and our friend.

Rest in peace.

I would like to be remembered as someone who tried to do good, who tried to help the people of the Virgin Islands, who tried to improve the condition of our people, someone who loved the Virgin Islands and would love to see them prosper in the years to come.

This is not the very best period involving islands in our history, but I believe better days are ahead.

Life is like that.

It's an up and down and up.

So after the sunshine comes the rain and the wall.

He said A better day will come again.

That's my hope.