StM News

St. Martin’s was thrilled to present Dr. James B. Robinson ’75, with the 2024-25 Martin de Tours Award, honoring him as an outstanding citizen who consistently serves the community and demonstrates a commitment to the highest standards in his field. Robinson is St. Martin’s 27th recipient of this prestigious award.

In bestowing the Martin de Tours Award, Head of School Whitney Samuel Drennan ’94 also gifted Robinson with a Saints football jersey bearing his old number of 63. In his remarks at the ceremony, Robinson credited his education at St. Martin's with giving him a foundation rooted in Faith, Scholarship, and Service. 

Following the ceremony in the Dan and Frances White Chapel, Robinson spoke with a group of Upper School student athletes about his career path and the ways St. Martin's helped to shape his trajectory. St. Martin's extends its deepest gratitude to this wonderful role model for our current Saints and incredible example of what it means to live the mission of St. Martin’s Episcopal School. 

Transcript of Robinson's speech at award ceremony:

“Good morning. And Roll Tide!

First of all, I'd like to thank several people for coming. This distinguishing honor that, to me, humbled me more than anything in my life. Mrs. Drennan, of course, Julia Bland, Meri Monsour, my best friend in life, Bruce Parkerson, who I know is behind all this, of course. I'd also like to thank the Board of Trustees and the Board of Visitors for having confidence in me also.

I would also like to thank my mother and father for their sacrifice to allow me and my sisters to be 13 year lifers at St. Martin’s. It wasn't easy, but I know that they wanted to make sure that we got a fantastic education, and I'm sure everyone here did also. I'd like to thank my lovely wife and daughter for putting up with my shenanigans all these years.

And, of course, my sister is also here, who graduated a year before me. Everybody here knows the Alma Mater, right? There's a line in that Alma Mater that, when you sing it, everybody messes up at least once, I know. Okay? Do you all know what it is? It's on the back [of the program]. “No matter where e’er life's cares may drive us, her teachings will be there to guide us.”

That “where e'er life’s cares, what life's cares,” always missed everybody up. You know what I'm saying, right? But what are those are the teachings of St. Martin’s? Everybody's mentioned already, faith, scholarship, and service. And each one of those are foundations which your education has been built upon. Let's look at each one of them.

Okay, so faith. What is faith? Faith is a belief and trust in God and the principles and doctrines of the religion. You are blessed to get a Christian education at this school. The values that you will learn either in the religious classroom or here in chapel are going to be things that will shape your personality and your life for the rest of your lives.

And you need to take advantage of that. You can't go into a field like medicine without having a strong faith in God. I can remember in medical school, my first year in medical school, we had anatomy class. And during that anatomy class, we looked at the structure of a hand. And to look at the hand, this machine that was created by the union of just two cells, If that doesn't send chills up your spine, nothing will.

We have not, to this day, been able to create a mechanical hand that does anything that this human machine here that we have can do. It was created by God. Throughout my career, I know the hand of God was guiding me in everything I did. I can tell you story upon story about patients that I took care of, that can come in and have something, and I might order a test, or a lab test, or an x-ray, and I look back and say, why did I order that?

It's not something I would normally do. To give you an example, I had a freshman track athlete come in for his pre-participation physicals. And before any athlete could step on the field at the University of Alabama, he had to have a physical. And that was my responsibility. And I remember during the interview, I was talking to him and he started complaining about his knee.

He said, ‘I've had this knee problem. It's been going on for several years. And I've seen several doctors. I've had injections. I've had x-rays and all these kinds of things. It bothers me, but I can still carry on.’

He had a really normal knee exam, but I went ahead and got him an x-ray anyway. And on that x-ray was one little subtle finding, that even none of my colleagues could see on the x-ray. But when I looked at that x-ray, it was a spotlight. It was a huge, bright spotlight that showed me something that worried me tremendously. And I immediately sent him to get an MRI of that knee.

And it came back as a tumor in his leg. Why? That spotlight showed it to me. There's no question where that came from. That's the hand of God. And when I was in medical school, the treatment for his condition was amputation. But we caught it early enough and he got treatment for it. He ended up being the NCAA national champion in the hammer throw.

I look back on my career and on events like that and know that my Christian upbringing and teachings at a school like St. Martin's have played a significant role in my practice of medicine. 

What about the second? Scholarship. The accumulation of knowledge and learning. You are blessed and privileged to be in such a school.

Everybody in here is gifted or you wouldn't be here. And you need to take advantage of that. This is a time to develop strong learning skills, strong study habits. Because as hard as you might think some of your classes are now, and your tests are, it's only going to get harder. It doesn't matter what profession you choose to go into, you are going to have lifelong learning.

And you're going to always have to use those study habits to continue that learning so that you can continue to advance. What about the third pillar? The third pillar is Service. Okay? To me, the definition of service is doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return, just like Martin de Tours split his coat and gave it to a shivering beggar, not expecting anything in return. 

I hope in your years here, you will develop a servant's heart, as Bruce talked about. You should go on and learn to help others. Because that is what it's all about. 

I appreciate the time and energy that people put into giving me this distinguished award that I'm really humbled by.

In closing, I will say to you the last line of our Alma Mater: ‘long live our dear St. Martin's that we cherish and we love.’ Thank you very much.”