We had a packed audience on that day at Kim Son IV Restaurant. The atmosphere was very cozy and all of the audience stayed until the end of the program. The program went very smoothly and Thuy Tran Elena and Christine Nguyet Nguyen did an excellent job as the Mastresses of Ceremony of our event. Vian Nguyen and Dana Bui (who were the Youth Recipients of Class of 1999 and now came back to help us with this program) also did a fantastic job in the second part of the program as the hostesses for the second part of the program. All of them were so charming in our traditional costume a'o da`i and I am sure that we will share with y'all great pictures later on our web site. This was the result of their hard work and dedication to put time and energy into numerous practice sessions since last month.

The entertainment program this year was also very rich with many special cultural performances, started with the Folk Dance "Highland tribe music" performed by mostly Len Duong 2000 campers. The dance was led by a team of three young talented ladies: Minh Ly, Ngoc Huong and Kim Nguyen. Congratulation for a job well done! Thank you Minh Ly for having suffering the dance rehearsal sessions twice a week at your place and we’re glad that you changed your flight to stay with us until the D-Day before going back to school in Ohio. We also heard that some audience were surprised by the quality of our soloists (Kim Huong, Hoang Duc and Tieu Muoi) with great songs, and the folk songs of the three regions was also a highlight with colorful costumes and good short skits. However, the most touching performance was the last one featuring the musical skit "25 years reflection of Vietnamsese-American". Especially we also had the contribution of our three youth recipient students: Elizabeth Thy Nguyen, Hung Nguyen and Pham Tuan Huy. The skit brought back a lot of memories for those days when the south lost to the communists. Hoang Duc has demonstrated his talent again with a great prop of the boat and for those who were on stage that day, you know how hard it was to push the boat across the stage due to the stage condition, :-)). But we made it! Huy Pham, one of our recipients who particpated in the skit later told me that he’s willing to come back next year, even if just to push another boat across the stage, :-)). The musical skit drawed quite a few tears from our audience and the whole skit team received quite a great round of applause.

This year event went so smoothly and all the speakers on this occasion really created a great impact in the audience. Started with the keynote speech of Ms. Duy-Loan Le, Top 20 Houston Women in Technology, TI Fellow, Valedictorian of Alief Hasting at 16, graduated from college at 19 and became the most successful woman in the technology field at Texas Instruments. Her inrpiring speech captured the whole audience within all thirty minutes. Thank you chi Duy Loan for such a wonderful speech! Then the two speeches in Vietnamese (Nhu Chuyen) and in English (Tuan Huy) have touched the audience's heart beacause of its sincerity.

We also would like to give a big round of applause for the excellent reception team this year led anh Nguyen Gia Hoi and chi Le Kim Phuong. All members of the team showed up very early and did a wonderful and very well-planned job to receive our guests. All the ladies were so lovely in their blue uniform with the hat and all the gentlemen are very nice with their suit on. You folks helped to create a very nice and professional image for our association.

The Stage Crew were very well coordinated by Nong Duy Dat with anh Ha Huu Quang, Pham Truc, Tom Pham, Trinh Long, Nguyen Sieu, Hoang Duc, Hoat and Tuong Vu from Austin. A round of applause for our stage manager Nong Duy Dat for a job well done.

We cannot name all volunteer effort has been put on into this project including the fund-raising trips in a couple of weekends prior to the event, with teams walking outdoor in the 100+ weather. Your volunteer spirit was really outstanding! This year, the Fund-raising team led by a. Le Mong Hung and chi Tieu Muoi has raised a substantial amount and beside the awards we also had the two special Awards: "Best of the Best - Dao-Le Scholarship" offered by Ms. Le Duy Loan and the "Vietnamese language" Prizes offered by Trung Vuong Alumni Group.

It would not be complete for not to mention the great speeches that Pham Tuan Huy and Phan Nhu Chuyen have delivered at the end of the ceremony on behalf of the Award recipients. Huy was the winner of the "Best of The Best Award" and Elizabeth Thy Nguyen won the first Prize of Vietnamese language contest and Phan Thi Nhu Chuyen won the second Prize. Out of 18 students who showed up at our event, 15 participated in the Vietnamese language contest which consist of three test: speaking, reading and writing. We are so proud of them! We also are so delighted to welcome 11 students from this outstanding group to join VHKH family. Please join me to give a big welcome to Linh Thi, Hung Nguyen, Elizabeth, Linda, Bich Chi, Nguyen Gia Thang, Vera Tran, Phan Nhu Chuyen, Thuy Trang Pham, Tuan Huy, and Thu Pham. We are also delighted to welcome some new members joining us on that day: a. Nguyen Hao from Tenessee.

Overall we had a team of about 80 members and friends working together to make this program a reality. Please give a big round of applause for the outstanding leadership of our project coordinator: Ms. Bui Khanh Van and her assistant: Bui Khanh Linh.