“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the biblical times, a man’s worth was measured by the number of livestock he owned and children he fathered.

What is the measure of a man’s worth today?

Is it his physical stature or the number of academic degrees he has attained or the number of friends he has?

A few days ago, I sat in the hallowed hall of the House of Assembly of the British Virgin Islands.

I was not there to listen to politicians go after each other, nor to hear long, fiery speeches.

The person that I was there to see, no longer had verbal battles with other elected officials.

You see, on November 11, the BVI recently lost its former chief minister and first premier, Ralph Telford O’Neal, OBE, at the age of 85.

First elected in 1975, Mr O’Neal served the Virgin Islands Party until 2015 as representative for District 9, which encompassed his island of Virgin Gorda and Anegada.

With 40 years of service, he was the longest serving parliamentarian in the BVI.

Mr O’Neal spent 20 years combined as a teacher and civil servant before entering politics. So in total he had 60 years of public service.

Thousands of Virgin islanders came as individuals, as families, as coworkers, as groups of schoolchildren of various ages.

Ministers from Antigua & Barbuda, St Kitts & Nevis, St Vincent & the Grenadines and the United States Virgin Islands were in attendance to pay their respect.

Under his tenure as chief minister, then later as premier, the Virgin Islands experienced steady growth in the areas of infrastructure, school buildings, airport terminal, home ownership, hotel development and tourism growth.

The Virgin Islands transformed into a major financial services sector player owing to his vision to diversify their economy away from tourism alone.

On a more personal note, my own life has been greatly affected by the works of this icon.

As a young schoolgirl, my mother, June, was one of the hundreds of students who gained a love of mathematics from her teacher, Mr O’Neal.

He not only taught his students maths, but, equally as important, groomed them to believe in the potential of themselves and what they should do for their country and the entire Caribbean.

Later in life, he taught many of them the finer arts of property development, which served to benefit them and to place the Virgin Islands as one of the highest property value markets in the Caribbean region.

If one were to drive through Road Town, Tortola, they would see scores of multistorey office buildings owned by those who were his students.

So, yes indeed, my mother and most of her peers are now able to pass this very same knowledge of property development down to their children.

On a different note, after serving for 40 years, Mr O’Neal is responsible for grooming many, if not all, of those that choose to enter politics in the Virgin Islands.

His main concern was that the Virgin Islands and the greater Caribbean were developing critical thinkers and statesmen.

Again, putting on his teacher’s hat, he took one young man in particular under his wing and for more than 20 years taught him how to become not just an elected official but, more importantly, how to ensure that service to the country remained his primary goal.

Such was his trust in this young man that he eventually made him a minister in his Cabinet with the responsibility for labour, immigration and then, eventually, public works.

As each project was completed successfully, Mr O’Neal gave his student more and more responsibilities, such as leading delegations around the world to represent the Virgin Islands for various issues.

Eventually, this young man became deputy premier of the Virgin Islands. In turn, he, too, began to mentor young people near and far into the sacred role of public service.

This “young man” is my great-uncle, Julian Fraser, who has been one of my greatest life and political mentors over the past 20 years.

It is the workings of Ralph Telford O’Neal, OBE, that put both my mother and my great-uncle on paths to personal and political upliftment.

Subsequently, through them, my life and the lives of many others have been enriched with values beyond measure.

So, you see, there was no place else I could be this week but sitting in the House of Assembly of the Virgin Islands among the thousands to honour this great son of the soil.

• Christopher Famous is the government MP for Devonshire East (Constituency 11). You can reach him at WhatsApp on 599-0901 or e-mail at cfamous@plp.bm