MELBOURNE - Good fortune, coupled with fine leadership decisions, assured the success of Florida Air Academy's 2007 Spring Family Weekend.

On Friday night, Coach Aubin Goporo guided the FAA basketball team to a state championship.

On Saturday, FAA officials switched the schedule for classroom visits and the military parade hoping that the early morning rain wouldn't resume and rain on their parade. The decision saved the day.

The Hall of Flags, FAA's reception area, teemed with cadets, faculty and family members, visitors and friends as they waited for the parade to begin. Resplendent in red and white uniforms, drum and bugle corps members were easy to spot among the sea of deep blue uniforms worn by the other cadets.

Assembling on Falcon Field behind the administration building, the cadets fell into formations.

Merritt Island's Mary McGarvey, wearing a red FAA drum and bugle windbreaker, watched the event with her husband, Blaise, by her side. Their bugle-playing, 14-year-old son, Sean, is in his first year at FAA, in the ninth grade.

"Sean wanted to attend the academy for the past three years," he said. "The school has turned a good student into a great one."

Eleanor Eversley flew up from Grand Turk Island to see her son, Edmond, a 16-year-old who transferred from Cocoa High School in January. She pointed out that Edmond was easy to spot because, at 6-foot-10-inches, he was the tallest cadet in the corps.

A basketball player, he enrolled too late to be considered for this year's team. Following the parade, camera and video lights flashed in the Hall of Flags as parents recorded memories of cadets with their family members or friends before groups left to tour classroom facilities.

Cadet Mari Jang from Fairfax, Virginia, joined her mother, Hae Kim, her sister, Yuri and family friend Joan Yoo for the tour. Mari, a tenth-grade student in her first year at FAA, said she felt at home in the military environment since her father is a retired U.S. Marine.

In addition to brochures, maps and written information available in the reception area, a video presentation ran pictures and quotes from parents and cadets. A silent auction of students' art also attracted visitor's attention. Two class leaders, Christian Bishop, senior class president and Chris Madden, senior class vice president, sold raffle tickets for a catered dinner for four at a location of choice in Melbourne to raise money for the class of 2007.

Many cadets wore purple orchid leis that had been sent ahead by Cadet Nick Twyman's parents visiting from Hawaii. Nick is the academy's drum major and many of the five dozen beautiful floral gifts shipped to the campus encircled drum and bugle corps members' necks.

The International Festival set up in the gym was the final stop of the day for visitors. Tastes of traditional foods from more than 30 countries were stationed around the room in tribute to the international community represented by the student body of FAA.

Many relatives, such as cadet Alex Grossman's mom, Terri Gust, and grandmother, Betty Pisle; and cadet Sarah Maples' mom, Brenda, and sister, Katie, helped serve.

According to the school's Web site, students from 19 different countries currently attend the academy.

The school's first graduating female student, Lacy Richardson, and her younger sister, Shelby, a 10th-grader, were largely responsible for entertainment at the festival.

Inside the gym, Lacy arranged an exhibition of ballroom dancing and outside, Shelby who belongs to co-ed Boy Scout Venture Crew 71, arranged for a demonstration of Native American drumming and singing together with a display of Native American regalia.