St. Thomas Carnival, is one of our traditions that each year gives us a chance to celebrate our good fortune of being Virgin Islanders, it is one of those special times of the year when we get to showcase the culture of our islands and the creativity of our people. 

It is a time for the people of the Caribbean to come together and a time for all of our people to experience our culture.

The best of the Virgin Islands is on display during the Carnival celebration: our local talent, our arts and crafts, our native dishes, and our music. All of these elements echo through time in this Carnival 2009!

?Echoes through Time? is a truly wonderful and appropriate phrase for this year's Carnival theme. What a way to remind us to think of and pay tribute to those who have gone before and to recall with fondness those who laid the foundation for this grand celebration. 

And although we are in serious times, indeed some very hard times, both socially and economically, we are right to celebrate and honor our tradition of having fun and making fun. 

Carnival is the Virgin Islands and the Virgin Islands is Carnival. 

I want to recognize and congratulate Rosalind Titley. It is people like "Chummy" who have made the Carnival Village what it has become and so it is a very fitting and a good thing that this year's Village is named in her honor.

On behalf of all of the people of the Virgin Islands, I want to congratulate Carnival Queen Karence De Costa and her court and Carnival Prince and Princess Carlos Jan Brito and Ahkayla Petersen. May yours be a reign of peace and harmony and safety over this 57th Virgin Islands Carnival Celebration.

During this year's Carnival, I encourage all of to you to have fun, but to not forget those cherished elements, those echoes, of our past that have always made us a community. 

I ask each and every one of you to look out for each other and, most importantly, to keep a watchful eye on all our children. 

I wish each and every one of you a very happy and safe Carnival.