Garfield Whyte, an attorney-at-law since 2000, was recently honoured with The Gleaner's Silver Pen award, given for the best letter published by the paper that month.

Whyte contributed two Letters of the Day in April, and so was not surprised when he was notified that he was being given the award, but nonetheless surprised by which letter had been chosen, amusingly noting that he thought his other one was better.

His missive, 'We are living above our means', was written in the midst of the Budget Debate and spoke about potential readjustments the Government could make to assist finances. It was published in The Gleaner of April 25.

In the letter, Whyte indicated strong opposition to the current approach taken by the Government to financing, stating "the Government needs to wake up and stop going for the easy way out or simply resorting to increasing taxes to finance the Budget."

When asked if he still stood by the opinions he expressed, he had no hesitation.

"Absolutely! I still stand for every one of them."

"I can write these in half an hour, once I'm sufficiently motivated," he said.

Whyte gets great satisfaction from his contributions to the paper. "The Gleaner is my preferred method for expressing these opinions because I read it every morning."