Your Excellency, Dame Cynthia Pratt,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Every society has a way of pausing.
Not stopping. Not slowing down completely. Just pausing long enough to look up from the rush of daily life and say, “This matters.”
Today is one of those pauses.
We have gathered to lift up five Bahamians.
To set them apart for a moment.
Not because they asked to be seen, but because their lives, lived steadily and often quietly, now ask something of us in return.
When a country confers honours, it is doing more than recognising achievement. It is telling a story about itself.
It is saying, “This is who we are. This is what we value. This is the kind of life we hope others will live.”
Listen to the story these honourees tell, taken together.
It begins, as many Bahamian stories do, with work.
Mr. Talmage Raymond Leo Pinder Sr. built his life with his hands, with discipline learned at sea and carried onto land.
He worked his way through the fishing industry, became an engineer, an owner, a manager.
But the measure of his success is not simply what he built for himself.
It is what he made possible for others.
He trained young men who needed skills and a chance.
He invested in local enterprise when it would have been easier to look elsewhere.
He helped extend electricity further along Russell Island, turning darkness into opportunity.
And when he could have focused only on the future, he also chose to protect the past, preserving the memory of Spanish Wells through photographs and artifacts.
Today, he is set apart with an OBE. And in that moment, we are reminded that enterprise, at its best, is an act of responsibility.
Then the story moves to courage, the kind that does not announce itself.
Mrs. Cynthia Allison Donaldson entered public service at a time when simply walking through certain doors required resolve.
She became the first Black woman in spaces where that had never happened before.
She worked to connect Bahamians to jobs, to dignity, to visibility.
She appeared on national television when being seen carried weight far beyond a broadcast.
She also understood that service does not end with a title.
She gave time to the vulnerable, to community organisations, to church, to scholarship and youth development.
And when history called, she answered, standing with others to claim the right to vote and help shape the country we now inherit.
Today, she is lifted up with an MBE. And through her, we honour a truth we sometimes forget: progress is built by people who keep showing up when the road is not yet smooth.
The story then takes us into a classroom, where influence travels quietly and far.
Mrs. Eva Hilton dedicated more than four decades to educating Bahamian children.
She taught, she led, she guided. She shaped schools and, more importantly, shaped lives.
Long after exams were marked and assemblies ended, the lessons remained.
So deep was her impact that a school came to carry her name.
That is no small thing. It means a community saw itself in her work and chose to remember it permanently.
Today, as she receives an MBE, we are reminded that education is not simply a profession. It is an act of faith in the future.
Next, the story turns to health, and to a belief that care should begin before crisis.
Dr. Idamae Hanna dedicated her work to helping people change how they live, eat, move, and care for themselves.
She brought health education into communities.
She created programmes that helped people see measurable improvement in their own lives.
She extended that work to children, catching risks early, before habits hardened into illness.
Her work teaches us something important: a healthy country is built one decision at a time, one family at a time, one community at a time.
Today, as she is honoured with an MBE, we affirm that prevention, compassion, and knowledge are forms of national service.
Finally, the story arrives at trust.
Commissioner Shanta Knowles has spent her life in a profession where trust is everything and mistakes are unforgiving.
She worked major crimes. She led investigations that sought justice for victims.
She took on the hardest assignments, often in silence.
She built relationships with communities and carried the weight of public expectation.
When she became the first female Commissioner of Police, it was a moment of history.
But more than that, it was a statement of confidence. A belief that integrity, experience, and steady leadership still matter.
Today, as she receives the King’s Police Medal, we recognise service that stands between order and chaos, fear and reassurance.
Taken together, these five lives tell a single story.
They tell us that The Bahamas is built by people who accept responsibility when no one is watching.
By people who serve not for applause, but because it needs doing.
By people who understand that a country is strengthened when business builds community, when public service opens doors, when teachers invest in children, when health professionals prevent harm, and when law enforcement earns trust.
Today, we set these individuals apart. We lift them up. Not to place them above us, but to place them before us, as examples.
And in doing so, we quietly say to the nation:
this is what honour looks like.
Congratulations to our honourees.
Thank you for the lives you have lived.
May God continue to bless you and the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.