The Editor-in-chief of Cotton Tree News, George Bennett has retired after three years of service at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone.  He was previously the chief of STAR radio which began broadcasting under his direction shortly before the elections that brought Charles Taylor to power in 1997.

The Faculty of Arts, Fourah Bay College, hosted a farewell reception in honour of Mr. Bennett and other retirees.  Professor Aiah Albert Gbakima, Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sierra Leone, paid tribute to Mr. Bennett for his services to the college and the country as a whole.  In his farewell speech, Mr. George Bennett recalled his early days in Sierra Leone when as a staff of BBC he used to visit the state broadcaster, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service.  He said the CTN had been a success because, as he put it, the project was uniquely placed within the university system. George is one of the brains behind the establishment of the CTN project, jointly run by Fourah Bay College and Fondation Hirondelle. CTN's daily programmes of news and information are heard throughout Sierra Leone on 17 FM transmitters and in the West African region on short wave.  STAR radio, CTN's older brother, has welcomed many of CTN's journalists and students from Sierra Leone for training visits.

My long association with Fondation Hirondelle has ebbed and flowed but I had always pressed for a radio journalism project in Sierra Leone following the success of STAR radio in Liberia. The young editors and reporters here (like my colleagues in Monrovia) are outstanding. As I'd always hoped  the long hours of apprenticeship and training at Fourah Bay College have resulted in a first class daily package of news and information, heard throughout the country. -George Bennett, August 2008, Freetown, Sierra Leone

George Bennett has been coming to Africa for more than fifty years. Appointed Head of the BBC African Service in 1976, he retired from the BBC in 1988. He has worked in over 40  African countries for many organisations including the International Red Cross, the European Union and Fondation Hirondelle. He was Director of Information and spokesman for UNOSOM, the United Nations mission in Somalia.  He ran STAR radio in Liberia for its first two years and returned to work with its journalists when it restarted ten years later.