Avia Collinder, Outlook Writer

Conrad and his wife Arnel Elaine, parents of Kaysha and Lisa-Ann Grant.- Contributed

Conrad Grant, doting father of Lisa-Ann and Kaysha. - contributed

Conrad Wesley Grant, past principal of Savanna-la-Mar High School, who has also taken top awards from Rotary International for his community work, has been voted as a super dad by his daughters, who want the world to know about him.

Lisa-Ann Grant, employed to the Ministry of Labour, and Kaysha Grant, employed to the Ministry of Justice, say that their father is beyond perfect.

"He is more than a father," Kaysha Grant states. "He is one of the dads that people dream of."

"He would spoil them if he got the chance," wife of Conrad Grant, Arnel Elaine Grant, states, hinting that she has been the bulwark between the doting father and his adoring offspring.

On his part, Conrad Grant pleads guilty. "Everything I have is theirs."

Kaysha Grant told Outlook, "If there is anything that I need, he is always in a position to figure the best way forward. Daddy is eager to assist me in all my endeavours. I completed a first degree in Literature in English and then did five years of Law. He has been willing to make several trips to Kingston on my behalf - sometimes several times in one week to sort out my affairs. Whatever it takes he does it."

Daughter Lisa-Ann also expresses an earnest wish that she could find a spouse who shares the characteristics of her father.

"While I don't expected to find someone just like my dad, I would love to find someone (like him) who loves the Lord with all his heart, someone who respects the views of his family in making decisions, someone open enough to talk to, someone who will criticise you with love, and someone who - in and out of the home - represents what he speaks about. A very kind-at-heart, honest and respectful (person)."

The girls' mother, while expressing views slightly less saccharine than her daughters, is also proud of her spouse.

"He is a good father to his children. He takes his role very seriously. He is a family person," she states.

Conrad Grant told Outlook that he has patterned his life and relationships on that learnt in childhood from his own dad in Jericho, St James.

"My father, Delbert Grant, was a carpenter who worked very hard. While we were growing, he went around to get jobs to construct houses for people in the community. He was a devoted father. Most evenings when he came home he had a loaf of hard-dough bread for us. There was also a sweet called peppermint that he brought. He always came home with something."

Delbert Grant was a faithful provider for four children and wife Tredella Vidal Grant, who stayed at home to look after everyone. Conrad was the eldest child with special responsibilities, including planting the yam fields which fed the family.

When his parents migrated to England taking his siblings, Conrad declined. "I just could not see myself going there."

He was influenced, he admits, by Rusea's principal, Eric Frater, "a really hard-working teacher," who inspired him as a student of that school and who, he said, he planned to copy. Conrad acquiesced to his mother's desire for him to go to West Indies College, from which he graduated in 1967 with his diploma in Teacher Education.

The young teacher taught at Harrison Memorial High School in Montego Bay until 1977, then moved to the United States to pursue a master's in Educational Psychology and Counselling at Andrews University. He returned to Jamaica after completion, to work as principal of Savanna-la-Mar High School. Subsequently, he returned to Harrison Memorial High, where he remains today, juggling this teaching assignment with part-time lecturing duties at the Northern Caribbean University.

The teacher admits that he was rather slow in the matter of choosing a wife, always the best man and photographer at weddings and never the groom.

But, if they knew then what we know now, the women who knew Conrad Wesley Grant as a bachelor would have found a way to make his choice of a wife a lot easier (or found a way to make it work out, somehow).

Today, Grant is the very settled husband of Arnel Elaine - a senior lecturer at the Montego Bay Community College - to whom he has been married for 36 years.

He hoped for six children but Arnel Elaine disabused him gently.

He settled for two, Conrad Grant admits, because he soon realised the great deal that educating his girls completely would take.

"When we realised we would have to do our best for everyone, we decided on two. At school, it irked me to see children without school fees."

Decades later, the couple look back and - in Conrad's words - "we have worked hard and sacrificed and did our best."

Exciting

The girls both attended Montego Bay High School, where they both did the school proud, one passing 11 CXC subjects and the other passing eight subjects at age 15.

"For me, as a father, that was very exciting," Conrad Grant says, noting that the girls both went on to do well at the University for the West Indies.

Grant believes that the sacrifice involved in parenting was worth it, although there were some things he and his wife gave up.

"I loved to travel. I cut that out. It was an expensive venture. Otherwise, certain things that you see and you want, you just forgo it."

There was never any hesitation about paying school fees, he notes. "The money was there. There was a plan for everything - fees, books, and boarding costs ... There was nothing that I wasted money on. If I smoked or drank, I would not have been able to care for them in the way I wanted.

"There was no doubt about helping them in university. All that I had was theirs. There was a time when they were both at university together and we managed. Then, when Kaysha went to Barbados, we did the same. I don't want anyone else to take on my responsibilities as a father."

Although the girls were not allowed to go out at nights without their parental escort to and from each event, the girls only have warm memories of their teen years.

Lisa-Ann Grant told Outlook "No matter what, my daddy loves me, no matter what. When I was ill, some years ago and hospitalised, he spent the entire night going through all my albums since I was a baby. He could not sleep.

"These days, he calls me every other day. He is very interested in all that I am doing. He knows what is happening at home, at work, whatever projects. He knows all that is happening in my life."

The girls are quick to point out that their father and mother make the perfect team. "My mother is also great," states Lisa-Ann. "I have a wonderful mother who will go to the ends of the earth to make sure that we girls are OK. If she does not have the answer now she will find a solution to whatever."

Kaysha Grant added, "It's difficult to separate my parents as my father tends to go along with what Mommy says. They work together effectively. She was the disciplinarian.

"When he was principal of Savanna-la-Mar High and Prep, I spent days in his office. I was on his shoulders everywhere."

Lisa-Ann and Kaysha say that dad is extremely accomplished, and also revealed the not-well-known fact that he makes furniture too.

International awards

While he did not follow in his own father's footsteps in career matters, Conrad Grant enjoys constructing furnishings, and admits that he has made almost everything in the family home in Wiltshire.

As a Rotarian, he has received high international awards for community work, and is a leader in his Seventh-day Adventist congregation in Mount Salem, Montego Bay.

Kaysha states, "My daddy is one of the best one could ask for, and my mother is the best too. There is nothing we can't discuss. Nothing is a secret."

For his daughters, Conrad Grant's heart is as open as his arms.

Daddy Grant with daughters Lisa-Ann (left) and Kaysha at the beach, when the girls were tiny tots.- Contributed

Conrad Grant is a proud and award-winning Rotarian. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Conrad Grant has made a home for his family in Wiltshire, St James.