By BRENT STUBBS
Senior Sports Reporter
bstubbs@tribunemedia.net
ON the day she would have celebrated her 54th birthday, the basketball community and the teaching profession came together with family and friends to pay their last respects to the late Katrinka Marshall.
With her remains displaced in an urn, Marshall was remembered yesterday at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church where Pastor Elmond King delivered the eulogy at the private memorial service.
Marshall’s ashes are expected to be scattered in the waters of Andros along with her deceased father Bosville ‘Basil’ Marshall.
The 1984 graduate of St Augustine’s College, who represented the Big Red Machine in basketball, volleyball, softball and track and field, became one of the top basketball table officials in the Government Secondary Schools Sports Association, the New Providence Basketball Association, the Bahamas Basketball Federation and the Baptist Sports Council.
She was a long-time physical education teacher, having first taught at Government High School in 1997 and ended up at Garvin Tynes Primary before she moved into an administrative role in the Ministry of Education in 2019 up until the time of her death on February 13.
While she served in her various capacities, Marshall got her two daughters, Kiara Marshall-McPhee and Kylah Marshall, to follow in her footsteps as certified basketball table officials as well.
In each of their tributes, Clara Storr-King from the Ministry of Education, Bahamas Union of Teachers’ president Belinda Wilson and Varel Davis, the president of the Government Secondary Schools Sports Association, all touched on their interactions with Marshall, whom they noted would have been there to provide whatever assistance they needed without any hesitation.
Two of her siblings, Wendall Marshall and Rowena Lynch, also touched on the role their younger sister played in their family life, supporting them in every encounter, even when she wasn’t at her best physically or had some other commitments surrounding basketball to attend.
Among those also in attendance were Mario Bowleg, president of the Bahamas Basketball Federation; Keith ‘Belzee’ Smith, former president of the NPBA; James Price, president of the NPBA; Rochelle Kemp, who heads the table officials; referees Randy Cunningham, Christian Wilmore, Kevin ‘Island’ McPhee and Evon Wisdom, the sports director in the Ministry of Education.
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