In September 1971, pre-university education officially began in Las Tunas.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- A group of enthusiastic young people, led by the outstanding teacher Nelva Rosario Peña, are at the beginning of the Luis Urquiza Jorge urban pre-university, a center which, first moved from its original location and later converted into a Pre-university Vocational Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE in Spanish), still marks the path of the good high school graduates of these lands.

They say that it was all due to the efforts of Commander Faure Chomón Mediavilla and that the families of Las Tunas were more than happy because, before the event took place, the boys who decided to do their baccalaureate had to go to Holguín or Havana to make their dreams come true.

They were assigned the premises that had previously been the town hall of the district, and many studied there for the four years of the Basic Secondary School and the three years of the Pre-University. The men, in their blue khaki trousers and white shirts; the women, in blue smocks and wearing a kind of strip of cloth on the sleeve of their very white blouses that corresponded to their academic degree.

A little over a year ago, the students of the first graduation in this city gathered together. It was a pleasure to see them embrace Prof. Nelva, who had come especially from the United States for the occasion, to remember "those in the group" who for many reasons could not join them, to repeat nicknames from their school days, and to share anecdotes, some of them taken from drawers that had been locked away for years.

"Faure Chomón visited the school a lot, at any time. One of those many times we went out when he was inside and we told the escort, who was also his driver, the commandant said to take us to the Family Club for a snack. And the man took us there at that time.
"We showed up back at the school at about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and Nelva wanted to kill us. Faure didn't, he just laughed and told her that we were good kids and that she should let us have fun.

They recalled the nights they spent sitting in groups in Vicente García Park listening to Nocturno, the radio program that promoted the music of the prodigious decade and made them happy, like so many simple things around them.

"The Pre did sound", they say, and to explain it, they tell of the cultural life around the school, the evenings when they would stop Blanquita Becerra herself from her vernacular seat to watch her dance and sing for them, the galas performed by the students who could sing in Italian as well as play the violin and guitar, and of the sporting activities that took them to Puerto Padre and other places in these lands.

"We were crazy about growing up, breaking barriers, studying. We struggled to get good grades and visited each other in the evenings for study groups because we felt comfortable with ourselves. It was a very effervescent time."

The cold salad of the meeting was delicious, the joy was contagious at every embrace and they spoke of the grandchildren and the work of life with the satisfaction of those who know that they were the protagonists of a very special birth; because with the "Luis Urquiza" a new beginning came to these lands and the wonderful possibility of advancing from the efforts of their children.