FNM election strategist is dead – Roy Boyke

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ROY BOYKE

FNM ELECTION STRATEGIST Roy Boyke is dead!

Breaking News coming into Bahamas Press confirms Political strategist and coordinator for the FNM, Roy Boyke, has died. Boyke a British trained photographer of the Caribbean died yesterday. He was known for his stellar victories for the FNM in 1992, 1997 and in 2007. For a short while he served as a consultant in Tourism here in the Bahamas.

May he rest in peace.

According to report in the Trinidad Express Roy Boyke, a foundation member of the 1967 Express management team, died at his Maracas/St Joseph home yesterday morning, after a long illness.

Boyke,was chief photographer at the Daily Mirror in Port of Spain, when it suddenly closed late in 1966, played a leading role in combining former Mirror employees with business and also labour interests to start the Express in June 1967.

In the fledgling Express, Boyke worked as advertising manager, before he launched a successful career of his own in advertising, publishing and communications. A highly respected photographer, and an attractive writer, Boyke pioneered the editing and production of glossy and well-informed annual Carnival magazines.

Heading his own agency, Atlas Advertising, he became a leading executive and board director of the now-defunct Kirpalani’s group.

Later in life, Boyke distinguished himself in political communications, including memorably, on behalf of the National Alliance for Reconstruction, which won office by a landslide in 1986.

As a much-in-demand political communicator and consultant, he worked for the Basdeo Panday UNC administration, and was thereafter recruited for electoral campaigns in, among other places, Barbados, St Lucia, Antigua and Bermuda.

Roy Boyke is survived by his wife, Frances Anne, a former BWIA flight attendant, and his daughter, Rionne, an attorney.

Funeral arrangements are to be announced.