Desiderio Xavier Parreno ’38

Our distinguished classmate and valedictorian, Desi Parreno, died Aug. 27, 2000, in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Desi was born in Santiago de Cuba and attended the Newman School in Lakewood, N.J. At Princeton he majored in English, won the Class of 1870 Junior Prize in English literature, and graduated with high honors and Phi Beta Kappa. He was also Nassau Lit board chair, a Daily Princetonian columnist, and a member of Dial Lodge.

In our Ten Years Out book, Desi reported that he was president of his own company, La Maritima, S. A., comprised of a shipping terminal and bonded warehouses, and that he was also on the board of a nonprofit organization which presented plays to a subscription audience in Havana. During this period he also wrote short stories that appeared in Liberty magazine.

After the 1959 Castro takeover of all his property in Cuba, Desi moved to Spain, where he lived for 20 years, then moved to Costa Rica in 1980.

Desi never married and is not known to be survived by any close relatives. His brother, Albert J. '41, predeceased him in 1972.

The Class of 1938