A Salute to Carmela Lorraine Lowe De Gobern Editor, Panama Cyberspace News

A Salute to Carmela Lorraine Lowe de Gobern

Editor, Panama Cyberspace News

The Editorial Board of the Rainbow City High Newsletter, on behalf of the community, is proud to pay tribute to Carmela Lowe de Gobern for her tremendous and sustained efforts with the publication of the Panama Cyberspace News. She started this “unique and state–of-the art publication” in March 2001. Since then, she has promoted and built up this remarkable on-line publication and secured her reputation as a skillful, knowledgeable and potent literary legacy! She has proven to be a powerful voice and force to be reckoned with in the Panamanian Diaspora. Panama Cyberspace News rapidly gained popularity and Carmela’s reputation and claim to fame were sealed early on, as she became everyone’s favorite Editor, with very interesting, informative and entertaining reading. Her articles were so thought provoking and interesting that, from inception, she was able to easily find enthusiastic and devoted readership on both sides of the Continent. Carmela keeps her subscribers well informed of the very latest political, cultural and other important and pertinent activities in Panama. The Panama Cyberspace News has become a much-respected staple of the Panamanian community. We thank you, Carmela, and appreciate your tireless and unselfish dedication in your service to us all, el pueblo Panameño, the Panamanian village.

For the Editorial Board of RCH Newsletter and the community,

Claretta F. Prescott

Biography “The name Carmela Lowe de Gobern is synonymous with Editor of the Panama Cyberspace News, www.panamacybernews.com a unique on-line publication which celebrated its eleventh anniversary on March 1, 2012. Carmela retired in 1998 from the Panama Canal Commission, having served this U.S. federal agency for over 28 years, first as a clerk in the Supply Division, then as a protocol assistant in the Office of the Governor and subsequently as a liaison officer.

Following her retirement from the Panama Canal Commission in 1998, she worked as a writer/editor for The Tropic Times, a former U.S. Military newspaper based in the Canal Zone, until the closing of the military bases in 1999. Although retired, Carmela is even more active now than in previous years. In addition to being the writer/editor of the Panama Cyberspace News, she is involved in many other activities:

As an active member of the Rio Abajo Methodist Church, she also serves as the assistant organist and children’s story time teller. She has served as the Secretary of Admissions of the Society of La Sociedad de Amigos del Museo Afroantillano de Panamá (SAMAAP) for more than 23 years. She has served as MC and guest speaker for several cultural activities and has given seminars to various groups and institutions in addition to having served as an etiquette consultant for many years. She is the editor of the Panama Calendar, a 26-year-old benefit project, which supports various charities. From 1981 she has been a freelance journalist, having authored the newspaper column “Tips on Etiquette” which was published in The Star and Herald and The Panama American Newspapers. She has served as MC and guest speaker for several cultural activities and has given seminars to various groups and institutions in addition to having served as an etiquette consultant for many years.(delete since this is already mentioned in the previous paragraph).

Together with her husband, they work as a team in promoting Panama through their CyberNews and its Web site, the Panama Calendar and by sponsoring several excursions throughout the entire Republic of Panama (including three trips to the province of Darien, “a path less traveled.”) Her family (the Lowe-Gobern-Goodins) introduced the Kwanzaa celebration in Panama in the year 1994 and she has been involved in the organization of this annual celebration for the past 18 years Carmela has received several public recognitions for her efforts in attempting “to make the world a better place than she found it.” She was: honored by the American Society of Panama in November 2011, given redognition for her work by the Alcaldía de Panamá” in May 2006; honored by the “Grupo Folklórico de Panamá en Washington” (GRUFOLPAWA) at the Ninth Panamanian Folkloric Encounter in Washington, DC in September 2005; honored by The Methodist Connection of the Rio Abajo Methodist Church in 1989; honored by the “Sociedad de Amigos del Museo Afroantillano de Panamá” (SAMAAP) in 1992; and awarded the Silver Medal of the Panama Canal Honorary Public Service Award in 1987.

Carmela has been married to “Bocatoreño” Alonso Gobern for 36 years. She describes Alonso as the “wind beneath her wings, “because”…as she puts it:“in addition to being supportive in all my ventures. Alonso motivates and encourages us so that together we can meet greater challenges.” Alonso and Carmela are the parents of three children: Kajali (a master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force stationed at MacDill AFB in Florida), Nailah (Master’s Degree in Social Work, University of Maryland) and Jamila (a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force stationed at Hurlburt AFB in Florida).

Carmela holds a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Arts from the University of the State of New York at Albany, January 22, 1985. She is also a 1974 graduate of the Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Public Speaking and Human Relations.

Carmela enjoys sharing with others, especially the less fortunate and she strives to live by The Golden Rule, which comes from the Bible: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.’ Matthew 7:1.”