The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

LONG before she made her mark in the sporting community in New Providence and Grand Bahama, businessman Craig Flowers said he got a first hand view of the late Anita Doherty’s sporting prowess and administrator skills in Liberia.

On Monday morning, Doherty passed away at the Rand Memorial Hospital at the age of 73. She served in various sporting organisations, but was a long time educator and administrator who made an impact in so many people’s lives.

“What an amazing person Anita Doherty was,” was how Flowers - a long-time player and executive of the Bahamas Golf Federation who is overseeing the transformation of the BGF’s Driving Range at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex - described her.

“She crossed my path when we were both away from the Bahamas. She came prominently into my life and made such a huge impression when I was the training captain for Liberia Airlines and I offered her husband John Doherty a position with the company.”

Through their involvement in the company, Flowers said Doherty was able to organise a number of sporting events in the American/British Oil Refinery Compound. “Anita was able to take on the softball team, the baseball team, the basketball team and the volleyball team,” Flowers remembered. “The only team she didn’t take on was the bowling team.

“But she organised all of them and put together a team of administrators, who were truly amazed by the depth and the level of her ability to function the way she did.”

During the four years they spent there, Flowers said he and Doherty also attended the same school, learning the Arabic language, although the younger kids were shocked to see two older folks sitting in their class.

“Many of the foreigners there thought that we were wasting our time because Arabic was a language that we certainly could not learn,” he said.

“But Anita and I certainly proved them wrong. In the long haul, when her husband’s contract ended, there was a huge party to thank her for the role she played in pulling the sports together in the compound. She was presented with many awards.”

When she ascended the podium to give her speech, Flowers said she asked him to join her because what she was able to do, she could not have achieved without his support as a Bahamian.

“I felt very impressed because I knew she was learning something that she loved doing,” he said. “For the amount of friends she acquired in the Middle East was so amazing.

“I understood how fortunate and blessed that I was able to have crossed paths with Anita Doherty. I’m certainly a better person when I look back over her contribution and commitment to excellence and her ability to take nothing and make something out of it.”

Like the rest of the nation, Flowers said he will miss Doherty, but he will cherish the good times they shared and the big smile she exhibited on her face and her semi-masculine voice that demanded authority at all times.

“I can only say that I am a better person today solely because of the presence of Anita Doherty in my life,” he said. “May her soul rest in peace. I know I will surely miss her.”