Contact: Public Relations
(863) 680-4118

Florida Lecture Series features
author and historian Victor Andres Triay

LAKELAND, Fla. (March 4, 2002) - Florida Southern College welcomes author and historian Dr. Victor Andres Triay to the Florida Lecture Series on March 14. Triay will discuss his book, "Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506" (Gainesville U. of Fla. Press, 2001) and conduct a book signing following his talk. The lecture begins at 7 p.m. in the Hollis Room on campus.

"We are especially looking forward to having Victor Triay on campus," said James M. Denham, Director of the Center for Florida History. "The Bay of Pigs Invasion is an extremely compelling story, and Victor Triay will tell the story from the perspective of those who participated in this ill-fated attempt to take Cuba back from Castro."

Triay's parents and grandparents left Cuba for the United States in 1960. He was born six years later in Miami and raised in the heart of South Florida's Cuban exile community. Triay attended Catholic Schools and Miami-Dade Community College before earning degrees at the University of Florida (B.A.) and Florida State University (M.A. and Ph.D.). In 1992, he joined the faculty of Middlesex Community College in Middletown, Connecticut.

Triay is the author of "Fleeing Castro: Operation Pedro Pan and the Cuban Children's Program" (Gainesville, 1999), a book which explores the complete spectrum of the refugee/immigration experience: persecution at home, flight into exile, family separation and estrangement, alienation, cultural assimilation, and family reunion. Triay's "Bay of Pigs" is the winner of the Florida Historical Society's Samuel Proctor Oral History Award. Both books will be available at the lecture.

The Florida Lecture series is free and open to the public. For further information, please contact Dr. James M. Denham at (863) 680-4312 or visit our website at http://www.flsouthern.edu/flhistory/index.htm

About Florida Southern College
Florida Southern is a four-year, private, co-educational liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The college offers more than 40 undergraduate majors and a master of business administration degree accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Located in Lakeland, Fla., the college is home to the largest, single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world.

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