Sen­a­tors paid trib­ute yes­ter­day to for­mer Sen­ate vice pres­i­dent Rawle “Axe­back” Ti­tus who died Jan­u­ary 2. They al­so ob­served a minute’s si­lence in his mem­o­ry.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Lawrence His­lop list­ed the many ac­co­lades of the cul­tur­al icon, in­clud­ing reach­ing the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch se­mi fi­nals 19 times.

“A strong ad­vo­cate for preser­va­tion of To­ba­go cul­ture and her­itage, he worked tire­less­ly to raise aware­ness and his works had a last­ing im­pact on a gen­er­a­tion. He’ll be re­mem­bered as a true leg­end, great role mod­el to youths, man of in­tegri­ty and a cred­it to the Sen­ate,” His­lop said.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark said: “A cul­tur­al gu­ru has fall­en and now be­longs to the ages. He was a de­cent, dig­ni­fied and civilised per­son....with a fierce sense of in­de­pen­dence on what­ev­er he em­barked up­on. He played his role and con­tributed enor­mous­ly to our coun­try.

“He was lit­er­al­ly the repos­i­to­ry of rich cul­tur­al knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence. I hope the peo­ple of To­ba­go gath­er his writ­ings on many as­pects of To­ba­go’s cul­ture for youths to learn from.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Maria Dil­lon-Re­my said Ti­tus, who loved the is­land of his birth, did so much and served in so many spheres. She de­tailed his back­ground, in­clud­ing ma­jor and mi­nor de­grees in an­thro­pol­o­gy and so­ci­ol­o­gy and as an au­thor.

She said Ti­tus got his nick­name when he was a teenag­er and had re­fused to par­tic­i­pate in a cer­tain ac­tiv­i­ty. He told by some that he was as “dull as an axe­back.”

Say­ing T&T had lost a cul­tur­al icon, she added: “Farewell, Sir Ti­tus.”

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Nigel De Fre­itas said a life like that lived by Ti­tus wasn’t easy to cap­ture in a few words

“He served T&T for his en­tire life with love, this great son of the soil.”