SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Tal­ent­ed teen pan­nist and as­pir­ing me­chan­i­cal en­gi­neer Kai Caruth of Bish­op’s High School (BHS), To­ba­go, was ho­n­oured with the 2025 Nevin Roach Award for steel­pan ex­cel­lence on Ju­ly 4. The award was pre­sent­ed dur­ing the school’s grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, where Caruth al­so of­fi­cial­ly com­plet­ed his stud­ies, re­ceiv­ing his cer­tifi­cate from An­gli­can Bish­op Rev­erend Claude Berkley.

Caruth is the fourth BHS stu­dent to re­ceive the award, which recog­nis­es out­stand­ing steel­pan per­form­ers who dis­play dis­ci­pline, ded­i­ca­tion, and a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the art­form with­in the school. The award is named af­ter cul­tur­al ad­vo­cate and PanoGra­ma founder Nevin Roach, him­self a proud alum­nus of BHS, who es­tab­lished it as a way to give back to his al­ma mater.

De­scribed as a dis­tin­guished son of Buc­coo, Caruth is the son of An­dell Caruth and Tame­sia Tay­lor, and younger broth­er to Kyrie. He be­gan play­ing the steel­pan at the age of five with Dix­ieland Steel Or­ches­tra, lat­er re­fin­ing his tal­ent un­der the guid­ance of To­ba­go’s renowned mu­sic ed­u­ca­tor, An­tho­ny Moore.

His jour­ney has been marked by sev­er­al ac­com­plish­ments, in­clud­ing plac­ing third at the 2018 To­ba­go Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, help­ing lead the BHS Steel Or­ches­tra to a first-place fin­ish in To­ba­go, and rep­re­sent­ing the school at the na­tion­al lev­el in Trinidad.

“We didn’t win, but the ex­pe­ri­ence was un­for­get­table,” Caruth said of the na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion. “Pan has taught me dis­ci­pline, and no mat­ter how many in­stru­ments I learn, I’ll al­ways re­turn to it.”

Roach praised Caruth’s growth and ded­i­ca­tion, say­ing, “Kai rep­re­sents the ex­cel­lence, hu­mil­i­ty, and ded­i­ca­tion we seek to high­light through this award. I’m proud of his jour­ney and ex­cit­ed for what’s next. As he ad­vances with his stud­ies, his pas­sion for pan re­mains strong—a tes­ta­ment to why recog­nis­ing and sup­port­ing young pan­nists is so im­por­tant for the fu­ture of Caribbean cul­ture.”

The award it­self was in­spired by PanoGra­ma, a vir­tu­al steel­pan com­pe­ti­tion launched by Roach dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. As the world’s first on­line event of its kind for pan­nists, PanoGra­ma con­nect­ed the glob­al steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty and served as a plat­form for artis­tic growth and ex­po­sure. In 2023, Roach re­ceived the Young Gift­ed and Black (YGB) En­tre­pre­neur­ial Award for Caribbean Artis­tic De­vel­op­ment in recog­ni­tion of the ini­tia­tive’s im­pact.

Caruth’s win rep­re­sents not on­ly a per­son­al achieve­ment but al­so a cel­e­bra­tion of youth tal­ent, cul­tur­al preser­va­tion, and the en­dur­ing lega­cy of pan in shap­ing Caribbean iden­ti­ty.