News Release

Message of concern from Pitcairn Island to critically ill King Hussein in Jordan

ANGWIN (Napa County) Calif., February 5, 1999—The Pitcairn Islands Study Center on the campus of Pacific Union College here, today (Friday, February 5) acted as a facilitator in sending a message of "heartfelt concern" from Pitcairn Island, one of earth's most remote isles, to critically ill King Hussein in Jordan.

"By ham radio this morning (Friday) Tom Christian, Pitcairn's radio officer asked that we transmit a message to the king in Jordan that prayers are being said there for him, and that the Pitcairn people remember with much appreciation the ruler's generosity to their island ," said Herbert Ford, director of the study center.

Ford said the Pitcairn message was E-mailed to Queen Noor in Amman with the request that, if she feels it would bring comfort to the desperately ill Hussein, he learn of it.

Several years ago King Hussein made a gift of thousands of U.S. dollars through the Pitcairn Islands Study Center to aid the Pitcairners in providing an all-weather surface for the road that runs from the island's boat landing at Bounty Bay up their steep "Hill of Difficulty" to Adamstown, the island village.

A number of amateur radio operators on Pitcairn, possibly the largest number among the population of any place of its size on earth, feel a special kinship with the Jordanian ruler because he, too, is a "ham" radio operator.

Pitcairn Islands Study Center, 1 Angwin Ave., Angwin, CA, USA. Herbert Ford, 707-965-6625, 707-965-2047, Fax: 707-965-6504, Email: hford@puc.edu, Website: http://library.puc.edu/pitcairn