“Fear not, Ter­ry is here,” a fa­mil­iar phrase of­ten said by Mar­tin Ter­ry Ron­don, will no longer be heard by res­i­dents of To­co and en­vi­rons, and all the places he tra­versed around the coun­try to help those in need.

Ron­don, 74, a long-stand­ing coun­cil­lor and stal­wart of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, died short­ly af­ter lunch at his Trinci­ty home yes­ter­day.

He had been ail­ing for some time.

A re­cip­i­ent of a na­tion­al award, he gar­nered nu­mer­ous ac­co­lades dur­ing his over 20 years of ser­vice in lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

Ini­tial­ly elect­ed as the coun­cil­lor for the Elec­toral Dis­trict of To­co/Fish­ing Pond (now Va­len­cia East/To­co) in 1995, he con­tin­ued to be re-elect­ed on every oc­ca­sion un­til he with­drew from elec­toral pol­i­tics this year.

Fond­ly known as Un­cle Ter­ry, his in­flu­ence ex­tend­ed across var­i­ous ar­eas through­out T&T.

He served as a coun­cil­lor in the re­gion of To­co/San­gre Grande, a po­si­tion he held as an elect­ed coun­cil­lor for an im­pres­sive 27 years.

Ron­don ul­ti­mate­ly rose to the po­si­tion of chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion for two terms.

Un­cle Ter­ry an an­gel now

Ron­don’s life be­gan in hum­ble sur­round­ings in rur­al Matelot, where he emerged as a house­hold name.

De­spite his of­fi­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as chair­man and coun­cil­lor, Ron­don ex­tend­ed his as­sis­tance be­yond the con­fines of his con­stituen­cy, ea­ger to aid not on­ly those with­in T&T, but those be­yond this coun­try’s bor­ders.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side Ron­don’s Trinci­ty home, his daugh­ter Josanne Ron­don said her fa­ther peace­ful­ly passed away at home, cra­dled in his wife’s arms.

“My world was shat­tered in­to a mil­lion pieces. My dad­dy has gained his wings, and he has gone to heav­en. As many of you would know, he was ail­ing for some time, but he was get­ting bet­ter, so this was not ex­pect­ed at all. He died peace­ful­ly and he died in the arms of the woman he loved the most, my moth­er,” Josanne said.

“In as much as I am sad, I know my fa­ther lived a won­der­ful life. He did what he loved do­ing—help­ing peo­ple, lov­ing his fam­i­ly, and wor­ship­ping his God. It’s hard to­day, it’s re­al­ly hard. I feel so emp­ty, but my dad­dy lived 74 years of a good life,” she added.

Pon­der­ing the thought of say­ing farewell to her fa­ther, Josanne said, “This is by far the worst thing that I have to do, the worst I have ever ex­pe­ri­enced. We will make fu­ner­al arrange­ments and keep you all in­formed.”

Ron­don was al­so known as the To­co San­ta Claus when he stepped away from his role as coun­cil­lor for the area.

PNM stal­wart

Trib­utes and con­do­lences poured in for Ron­don and among those reach­ing out to his griev­ing fam­i­ly was Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who spoke with them dur­ing a phone call.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences, ac­knowl­edg­ing Ron­don’s ca­reer and ser­vice to the par­ty.

PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings re­flect­ed on the life of his friend and col­league, stat­ing, “Ter­ry was a true ser­vant of the peo­ple. He was deeply loved by those he served and was con­sid­ered a true PNM stal­wart. We will all miss Mar­tin Ter­ry Ron­don.”

The me­dia re­lease high­light­ed that at all events, Ron­don pro­vid­ed un­wa­ver­ing sup­port to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, show­cas­ing his dis­tin­guished yet ground­ed pres­ence. The par­ty said no meet­ing was with­out “Un­cle Ter­ry”, who shared his knowl­edge and kind­ness wher­ev­er he went.

“Un­cle Ter­ry’s enor­mous heart and bound­less hos­pi­tal­i­ty were ev­i­dent in his gen­eros­i­ty—whether gift­ing fish, tat­too, lappe, ground pro­vi­sions, veg­eta­bles, or fruits. No vis­i­tor could es­cape the re­gion with­out be­ing treat­ed to a feast of lo­cal del­i­ca­cies,” it said.

In Jan­u­ary 2020, at the PNM’s 64th-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, Ron­don re­ceived the Dr Er­ic Williams Medal of Ho­n­our for his long, out­stand­ing, and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice to the par­ty. In 2022, he was ho­n­oured with the PNM Vol­un­teer Fac­to­ry’s Life­time Award for his ex­em­plary ser­vice. Lat­er that month, he was award­ed the Hum­ming­bird Medal Gold, recog­nis­ing his record tenure as a lo­cal gov­ern­ment prac­ti­tion­er. He ded­i­cat­ed his na­tion­al award to the peo­ple from Matelot to Matu­ra.

The present PNM Coun­cil­lors and Al­der­men at the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion al­so paid trib­ute.

“Chair­man Ron­don’s style of pol­i­tics was vi­sion­ary and in­spi­ra­tional, ev­i­dent in his clear demon­stra­tion of all-in­clu­sive­ness, with a fo­cus on his mantras of ‘Good for one, Good for all’ and ‘Every mouth shall be fed.’”

“He im­pact­ed the lives not on­ly of his burgess­es in To­co/Fish­ing Pond and then Va­len­cia East/To­co but al­so the lives of in­di­vid­u­als through­out the length and breadth of San­gre Grande, Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Caribbean, and ul­ti­mate­ly, the world.”