Cecil Langford of the Coffee Industry Board (CIB) passed away on January 10 after a brief illness. Langford contributed to the development and policy of the coffee industry as a member of the CIB from 1974-1988 and as chairman from 1987-1988. Over the many years of his association with the coffee industry, Langford was seen by stakeholders as a benevolent father.

Wife of former Jamaican footballer and media great, Lindy Delapenha, passed away on January 9.

Roy Reid, whose paintings of everyday life won him many admirers in Jamaica and the Caribbean, died January 11. Reid was found dead by his wife Mabel, in the workshop of his St Andrew home.

Dr Glenton Smith served the Jamaica Football Federation, the Jamaica Olympic Association and the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association, as well as other national sporting bodies as team doctor for many years. He died on January 12 in Miami, Florida. at age 52.

Ryan Peralto, the Jamaica Labour Party politician who figured prominently in the organisation's fiery spats of the 1970s, died at age 75 on January 23 at the Andrews Memorial Hospital in St Andrew after a brief illness.

His work with the Electoral Advisory Commission (EAC) was arguably Peralto's greatest public legacy. His automated electronic system, which earned a 1999 patent in the United States, was used by the EAC in elections to reduce voter fraud.

The distinguished and inter-nationally acclaimed former Jamaican diplomat died on January 28. She was 85 and had been ailing for sometime. Mair was a lifelong champion of the rights of women. She served as secretary general of the World Conference on the United Nations Decade for Women, held in 1980 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and also served as special adviser to UNICEF on women's development.

In October, legendary Jamaican bandleader and jazz instru-mentalist, Sonny Bradshaw, who stamped a lasting footprint on the island's musical landscape, died. He was 83 years old.

He was one of the last links to the big-band craze that took place in Jamaica during the 1940s.

Steely and Clevie were responsible for some of dancehall's most memorable tracks. Many of them, like Wicked Inna Bed, Twice My Age and Trailer Load A Gal, were done by controversial deejay Shabba Ranks, who led an invasion of dancehall acts on North American charts during the 1990s. Johnson died on September 1 at a New York City hospital.

The multi-talented theatre practitioner was planning several big projects before he died of a heart attack in September. He received several awards in his lifetime. Among his noted works are Smile Orange, Old Story Time, Milk and Honey, and his award-winning one-man play and book Bellas Gate Boy.<

Former chairman of the Ward Theatre Foundation, former head of the Creative Production and Training Centre and the now-defunct Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation.

He died at 87 on October 5.

Lauded as one of Jamaica's best-ever footballers, 'Syd' Bartlett, was a member of Jamaica's first World Cup team, which narrowly lost to Mexico in the qualifiers.

Jamaica's first-ever parliamen-tary ombudsman died on December 4 at 83. An attorney-at-law, he was known to many as 'Gun Court Green', after he was appointed the first judge of the Gun Court, which came into being in 1974.

Few women in Jamaican public life made the impact and left the indelible mark on the nation that Lady Bustamante did. In her quiet, unassuming manner, she wielded strong influence on the two areas of public life with which she was associated: politics and trade unionism. Although not actively engaged in politics, she ran once, unsuccessfully, in a parliamentary election. She was, nevertheless, a powerful behind-the-scenes figure in the Jamaica Labour Party, founded by her beloved 'Chief', Sir Alexander Bustamante.

The journalist lost his battle with cancer on December 14 at a hospital in London where he was undergoing treatment. Pryce's media career took him to the BBC World Service and Choice FM radio in London, Television Jamaica, and Radio Jamaica, before he joined CVM TV and HOT 102 in Jamaica.

He worked as a broadcast journalist with CVM TV, covering news and sports, anchoring news and sportscasts, as well as hosting current-affairs programmes.

Former Chief Justice Kenneth Smith died on December 20 at age 89. He served as chief justice from 1973-1985. In 1965, he was appointed Supreme Court judge, and in 1970, was named to sit in the appeal court until his appointment as chief justice.

Jean Lewis was managing director of Lindo FCB and a director of the Advertising Agencies Association of Jamaica (AAAJ). She had a long and successful career and made a great contribution to the development of the advertising profession in Jamaica.

And overseas

Michael Jackson, the sensationally gifted child star who rose to become the 'King of Pop' and the biggest celebrity in the world only to fall from his throne in a freakish series of scandals, died on June 25. He was 50. His death was voted the number one entertainment news of 2009.

Farrah Fawcett, actress, 62, died on June 25. The star of the Charlie's Angels TV series, and a sex symbol of the 1970s, died after a long, public battle with anal cancer.

For decades, the United States preacher and self-proclaimed healer deftly used television to become one of the world's most recognised and influential televangelists. He died at 91 on December 15.

Brittany Murphy, US actress, died at age 32 on December 20. The co-star of Clueless, 8 Mile and Girl, Interrupted, suffered cardiac arrest in the bathroom of her Hollywood home.

The United States actor died at 72 on June 3. The star of the 1970s television show Kung Fu, who appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies, was found naked and hanging from a rope in the closet of his luxury Bangkok hotel room.

Patrick Swayze, actor, died at 57 on September 14. Best known as the smouldering dance instructor in Dirty Dancing, Swayze died less than two years after being diagnosed with Stage Four pancreatic cancer.