A very successful reunion was held in Miami in May of 2007. It was very well attended. Some of the highlights of the reunion were: a discussion of the newly-published book From Dreams to Reality by James D. Baker, and several live demonstrations of the new Ruston Yearbook CD which captures every page of twenty years of yearbooks in a single CD-Rom media. For more information on how to get a copy of either of these, and for more information about the 2007 reunion, visit the official Ruston Academy website at www.rustonacademy.org

I was not able to take any pictures during this reunion, so I am counting on other Rustonians to help me populate these pages. Several requests have been sent out. Pictures will be published soon. Stay tuned. See my notes below for an initial account of the event.

My notes on the 2007 Ruston Reunion:

¨We have just returned from attending a very successful 2007 Ruston Reunion, held at the Grand Bay Hotel, in Coconut Grove, Miami, in May of 2007. The 2007 Reunion committee worked long hours to insure that the event was going to be a stellar success. And it was! Thanks to all of you who made it happen!

We attended the Friday night cocktail party, the business meeting on Saturday morning and the dinner dance on Saturday night. It felt great to be among the Ruston family again, and see so many familiar faces once more.

During the duration of the cocktail party, we displayed the contents of the newly-released Ruston Yearbooks CD on a large screen . Many Rustonians standing around the projector asked to see their yearbook senior or junior picture. The most common phrase heard over and over was: "¡Pero chico, estás igualito, a penas has cambiado!". Some Ruston graduates defiantly posed right beside the large projected screen showing their yearbook picture to prove it. What a photo opportunity it was! Everybody had a great time!

On Saturday morning, at the well-attended business meeting, it was a time to remember. Some say that "recordar es volver a vivir". We remembered those very special days at Ruston in Havana. We remembered, guided in prayer by our very own Bishop Bill Skilton, those Rustonians who are no longer with us. We celebrated and talked about Jim Baker´s newly published "Ruston, From Dreams to Reality". Chris and Karen Baker's persistence and hard work made it possible for Jim Baker's unfinished draft of the Ruston story to be formally released in print for all to discover and for us to remember. Chris and Karen, your dedication makes all of us Rustonians feel great pride! Mil gracias!

At the business meeting, María Romañach and I spoke briefly to the audience about the work that went into the Yearbook Project. María spent two full weeks scanning yearbook pages with a scanner set up in her bedroom, while her husband and dog patiently looked on. Gracias, María.

At the meeting, we even took time to sing "Ruston Forever", our beloved school hymn. We displayed the lyrics included in the Yearbook CD for all to see, por si acaso. The group was magnificently led by our very own baritone Polo Nuñez, serving as our impromptu choir director. Gracias, Polo.

Note: I recommend that all Rustonians get both the CD and DVD. Both contain every page in every Ruston yearbook from 1940 to 1960 (except 1942's, for which nobody has found a source yet). Only the CD has all the navigation, in internet browser fashion, which allows easy display of the various yearbook sections and pages from any year at your fingertips. The image quality in the CD is optimized for our computer screens. The computer format DVD, in turn, contains higher quality page images suitable for printing and or computer editing for other purposes. The Ruston Yearbook DVD will not play in your video DVD player at home. It is not a video DVD. It is a computer data DVD, and to view it, you need a computer with a DVD drive, which is fairly common these days.

If you decide to just get one of the two, I suggest that you get the CD. It is the one you want to give to your children and grandchildren, to educators and to historians and civic leaders. For the price of $10, it has an attractive packaging and label and all the content of the yearbooks. Alternatively, you could make your own copies, but the official Ruston CD's are much more impressive and official. We ordered a large number of these CD's, so you can get as many as you want. This easily-viewed Ruston Yearbook CD material, the print-quality Yearbook DVD, and Jim Baker´s newly published "Ruston, From Dreams to Reality", together represent a fairly complete historical record of the story of Ruston Academy in Cuba, for future generations to study.

Much more information on the 2007 Reunion will be published soon at the official Ruston Academy website at www.rustonacademy.org. Stephanie Braxton, Class of '62, is our official "cronista" for the event. Any stories and pictures related to this 2007 reunion should be sent to her as soon as possible, at sbraxton1@aol.com. ¨

A message to the members of the Ruston class of '62: if you have any pictures from the 2007 event that you would like to have published on this Class of '62 website, please send them to me via email at siesta2000@yahoo.com