I re­call as a child see­ing Hol­ly Beteaudi­er and Sham Mo­hammed giv­ing away prizes on Scout­ing for Tal­ent and Mas­tana Ba­har re­spec­tive­ly. Grow­ing up in these times, watch­ing tele­vi­sion meant watch­ing what­ev­er was on the screen, but liv­ing in St James, a town of mixed eth­nic­i­ty, that mix of pro­gram­ming was noth­ing dif­fer­ent to the norm of every­day life.

On Scout­ing for Tal­ent, how­ev­er, you got that cul­tur­al mix. I re­call lis­ten­ing to rap­so in its in­fan­cy, ca­lyp­so, ex­tem­po, mono­logues, tra­di­tion­al In­di­an dancers and singers as well as the less­er-than-nor­mal per­for­mances such as the men who tuned milk cans and played them like steel pans, or a man who whis­tled while he brushed his teeth.

As Christ­mas ap­proached, Hol­ly trans­formed in­to al­most an "his­panoh­ab­lante" (span­ish speak­er), speak­ing the lan­guage with the likes of Daisy Voisin for the Hol­ly B Parang Band­wag­on. He was al­so known as a lover and flu­ent speak­er of our lo­cal pa­tois, and up to his pass­ing, could be heard on I95.5fm with his show "Toute Bagai."

From giv­ing away Crix tins in Scout­ing, to giv­ing away pearls of our his­to­ry, he shared with us. From his start in ra­dio, to his days as a pre­sen­ter on TTT and his fi­nal ra­dio ap­pear­ances, he broad­cast­ed to a will­ing, lov­ing au­di­ence. From the tra­di­tion­al arts to the emerg­ing arts (such as rap­so) he gave us a stage. From his con­tri­bu­tions to per­for­mance art, to our bet­ter known spo­ken lan­guages (pa­tois, span­ish and tri­ni slang) he shared the sound of our con­ver­sa­tion.

Hol­ly Beteaudi­er tru­ly shared the depths of T&T's cul­ture. More than just mu­sic, dance and sto­ry­telling, he shared our fes­ti­vals, lan­guage and even spoke of the nu­ances of our be­hav­iour.

He shared our true cul­ture, and we love him for it. Rest in Peace, Hol­ly B!

Mau­rice Burke

Aranguez