SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

“He is one of the coolest peo­ple. What will we do with­out him?” That’s the kind of sen­ti­ment echoed by staff at Sam­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in Al­aba­ma when speak­ing about Caleb Noah John—a young man whose qui­et strength and char­ac­ter left a last­ing im­pact far be­yond the class­room.

Born to a Trinida­di­an-Amer­i­can fa­ther, Christo­pher “Chris” Noel John, orig­i­nal­ly from Laven­tille, and a Do­mini­can-Amer­i­can moth­er, An­na-Maria Mar­tinez-John, the young John has car­ried for­ward a lega­cy built on re­silience, faith, and strong moral val­ues—traits passed down from a fa­ther who was raised by a sin­gle moth­er and who, in turn, in­stilled those same prin­ci­ples in his son—most im­por­tant­ly, to know and love God.

As a teen, John wrote in his au­to­bi­og­ra­phy about the morals, val­ues, re­spect, hon­esty, in­tegri­ty, and strong work eth­ic he learned from his fa­ther. “My dad has taught me those same val­ues that his moth­er taught him so that I can be­come a suc­cess­ful in­di­vid­ual in life.”

As a role mod­el for John, his dad, Chris, re­mained close to God and ul­ti­mate­ly be­came one of the most re­spect­ed, suc­cess­ful, and sought-af­ter in­sur­ance claim prac­ti­tion­ers in Amer­i­ca, ho­n­our­ing his promise to him­self–to be the fa­ther he wished he’d had. John’s moth­er is a dis­tin­guished teacher/ed­u­ca­tor.

John, 22, is now a pre-law Chris­t­ian and Re­li­gious Stud­ies stu­dent at Sam­ford and serves as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of di­ver­si­ty.

On March 24, 2025, he be­came the first stu­dent of Trinida­di­an lin­eage to be elect­ed pres­i­dent of the uni­ver­si­ty’s Stu­dent Gov­ern­ment As­so­ci­a­tion (SGA) and was in­au­gu­rat­ed on April 22 in the pres­ence of his par­ents.

The SGA rep­re­sents and pro­motes stu­dent in­ter­ests, fos­ters lead­er­ship, and plans and de­liv­ers ac­tiv­i­ties and ser­vices for the stu­dent body.

John mar­ket­ed him­self for of­fice by liken­ing the uni­ver­si­ty to the Gospel of Matthew: “A city on a hill.”

He said he be­lieves in uni­ty on cam­pus and in build­ing a com­mu­ni­ty where op­por­tu­ni­ty and re­sources are ac­ces­si­ble to all. He has tak­en in­to ac­count ma­jor chal­lenges, over­come doubts and fears, and fo­cused on prob­lem-solv­ing—guid­ed by his sev­en pil­lars: Stu­dent Life, Com­mu­ni­ty Con­nec­tion, Cam­pus Ex­pe­ri­ence, Aca­d­e­m­ic Achieve­ment, Trans­par­ent Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, In­ter­nal Op­er­a­tions, and Faith In­te­gra­tion.

John said he brings a unique per­spec­tive as Di­rec­tor of Di­ver­si­ty, with the aim of mak­ing the SGA more ac­ces­si­ble and ac­count­able. He wants to see every stu­dent even­tu­al­ly work­ing to­geth­er for the bet­ter­ment of the as­so­ci­a­tion.

“Com­mu­ni­ty is es­sen­tial to what makes Sam­ford unique,” John said. “As a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion im­mi­grant, trans­fer stu­dent, and for­mer stu­dent-ath­lete, I be­lieve every stu­dent should feel like they be­long.

“I based my cam­paign on the BRIDGE Strate­gic Plan: Build an SGA that cre­ates change; Re­sponds to stu­dents swift­ly; Im­proves ser­vice to stu­dents and or­gan­i­sa­tions; De­vel­ops ser­vant lead­ers; Glo­ri­fies God in all that SGA does; and Es­tab­lish­es our stan­dard of ex­cel­lence.”

At the in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny, John was de­scribed as “hav­ing a heart for men­tor­ing oth­ers in love and faith”.

In ap­pre­ci­a­tion and trib­ute to Caleb’s as­cen­sion and com­mend­able choic­es – many of which he em­braced vol­un­tar­i­ly from his ear­ly school years – his fa­ther pre­sent­ed him with a spe­cial video on be­half of him­self and An­na-Maria.

The video, com­piled by USA-based Cathy Joseph, of­fered thanks to God for an­swered prayers and di­vine guid­ance in Caleb’s jour­ney – like sweet mu­sic in the air. It fea­tures mo­ments from the in­au­gu­ra­tion at the Wright Cen­ter and the for­mal din­ner at the Ves­tavia Coun­try Club, in­clud­ing the SGA-brand­ed cake and ster­ling mes­sages such as, “Suc­cess is de­liv­ered to the de­serv­ing. Con­grat­u­la­tions” and “Thank You.” The back­ground track, Hear My Song, Lord by the Gaither Vo­cal Band, gen­tly gar­nish­es the pro­duc­tion.

Its first verse:

Hear my song Lord

You fill me with mu­sic

Hear my words Lord

You fill me with praise

To con­tin­ue set­ting an ex­am­ple–not on­ly for Sam­ford but for young peo­ple every­where–John, al­so the first with locks to hold the post, aims to man­age a full aca­d­e­m­ic load of 15 cred­its suc­cess­ful­ly.

His oth­er ac­com­plish­ments in­clude be­ing pres­i­dent of Sam­ford’s Tau Io­ta Chap­ter; the Al­pha Phi Al­pha Fra­ter­ni­ty (Birm­ing­ham, Al­aba­ma, April 2024–2025); Race, Eth­nic­i­ty, and So­cial Jus­tice Mi­nor (Fort Worth, Texas); Pas­toral In­tern at Hutchin­son Mis­sion­ary Bap­tist Church (Mont­gomery, Al­aba­ma, June 2024); ser­vice on Sam­ford’s Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Af­fairs Com­mit­tee (Aug 2023–Apr 2024); and a BA in Bible/Bib­li­cal Stud­ies (Truett Mc­Connell Uni­ver­si­ty, 2022–2023).

Last year, John’s fa­ther brought him and his moth­er on a brief maid­en vis­it to T&T, which in­clud­ed his fa­ther’s for­mer com­mu­ni­ty of Laven­tille. How­ev­er, ow­ing to John’s press­ing com­mit­ments, he was un­able to share words of love and faith with the youths of Trinidad/Laven­tille. His fa­ther not­ed that this project would soon ma­te­ri­alise.