By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 26, 2024 — I absolutely had to share this post by Troya Oliver-Brown, wife of my grandnephew Samuel R. Brown with readers of my online publication, BAHAMAS CHRONICLE, which has a huge following among the Bahamian diaspora across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom as well as in The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean.
Troya, who is the lead Clinical Physician at Doctors Hospital Health System in Nassau, posted this collection of photos on Facebook with the following narrative: “Samuel Brown, Attorney-at-Law, lecturing to law students at Eugene Dupuch Law School. Such an amazing speaker and lawyer.”
Although he failed to win the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) nomination for the recent vacant West Grand and Bimini seat in the House of Assembly, there is no question in my mind that Sam has an extremely bright future in Bahamian politics.
Sam, who was born and grew up in West End, is the son of my niece, Carla Brown-Roker, the youngest child of my late brother Simeon “Sugar B” Brown, who was three years older than me and was my mentor as a young boy growing up at Stanyard Creek, Andros, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
My brother Simeon was one of the very smart young men who in their teens mastered the communications skills of telegraphy in the 1950s and were conscripted by the Bahamas Telecommunications Department as telegraphers.
Telegraphy was the principal form of communicating information by coded signals before telephones revolutionized the communications industry, and some the young experts in this telegraphic system were sent to the various Out Islands of The Bahamas.
My brother Simeon was posted in West End, the capital of Grand Bahama, where he met and fell in love with a lovely Grand Bahama young lady, Ogletta Smith. They eventually got married and were blessed with three children – my nephew Simeon and his sisters Valery and Carla.
The proper education of his children was a top priority for my brother. My nephew Simeon is a renowned lawyer; his eldest daughter, Valery Brown-Alce, has been involved in promoting tourism for The Bahamas from shortly after she graduated from college and is currently Senior Director of Marketing at the Bahama Out Islands Promotion Board; and after graduating from college, Carla started her professional career as a teacher and later transferred her talents to government service. She is currently Youth Programs Coordinator in Grand Bahama with the Bahamas Government.
So, it was inevitable that Carla would likewise place education at the top of her priority list for her son Samuel R. Brown. He was an excellent student at Grand Bahama Catholic High School, where he was a perennial debate champion.
He subsequently went to law school in England, and is currently an Associate with law firm Delaney Partners, where he practices “primarily commercial litigation, including corporate litigation, trust litigation, insolvency and corporate restructuring,” according to the firm’s website.
Prior to joining Delaney Partners as an Associate in September 2021, “Samuel’s earlier professional career included acting as an Associate at two leading Bahamian law firms where he developed a broad range of experience in civil and commercial matters, such as corporate and commercial law, banking and financial services, professional negligence and employment and labour law,” the website states.
Needless to say, as noted earlier, I am immensely proud of my grand-nephew, and I am still disappointed that he did not succeed in his quest to become the next Member of Parliament for West Grand Bahama and Bimini.
