Minister of Amerindian Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues on Thursday paid tribute to the late Phillipai, Region Seven mountaineer Isaac Jerry.
A press release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) said Rodrigues, on behalf of the government, extended condolences to his family. Rodrigues, alluding to the words of Major General (ret’d) Joe Singh, said, “Mr Jerry is the foremost mountaineer of his generation and played a major role in the successes of several expeditions.”
The minister, in listing some of the 74-year-old Jerry’s accomplishments, said he pioneered the route to the summit of Mount Ayanganna for the flag-raising ceremony led by late mountaineer Adrian Thompson on the eve of Independence in 1966.
He was “involved in several other subsequent (ascents) by the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) flag-raising teams” and accompanied Thompson on the overland expedition in 1968 from Konashen in the south to Manaus in Brazil. Rodrigues said Jerry took the lead and was the foreman for the British Roraima expedition in 1971 which Thompson and Adrian Warren were also on. He also worked with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission’s prospecting crews in the Upper Mazaruni in the 1960s and 1980s and was a farmer, diamond dealer and leader in the Hallelujah Church.
GINA said Rodrigues also made a monetary contribution to Jerry’s funeral costs, which she said “in no way could be equated to the enormous contribution Jerry made to the national expedition fraternity.”