Celebration 2026
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Celebration 2026 — A Legacy Worth Celebrating
From July 29 to August 2, 2026, one hundred and twenty-nine descendants of Solomon and Elizabeth Hibbert gathered at the Moon Palace in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, travelling from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and across Jamaica itself. Six of the eleven family lines were represented — Hannah, Hazel, Huntley, Joslyn, Lucille, and Sydney — in what was our most structure and fun reunion since we began in 2025.
The theme, A Legacy Worth Celebrating, was chosen for three reasons: to celebrate the children of our first reunion in 2005 who have since grown into adults, to welcome relatives who have recently found their way home to us, and to honor the roughly fifty family members we have lost since that first gathering.
Five days were built around that idea. Each morning opened with a beach walk and devotion on South Beach. The week held Beach Olympics and a rum punch making class, a Passport and Citizenship seminar with representatives from PICA, a Family History Presentation on DNA, genealogy, and the origins of the Hibbert name, and a fire dance on North Beach that ended with our family name set alight against the dark. Friday brought Brains & Beauty led by business woman and entrepreneur Melissa Hibbert for the women and Boys to Men for the men — the latter with participants ranging in age from sixteen to seventy — followed by the family portrait in white and the Awards Banquet, where the Solomon and Elizabeth Scholarship, the John Fitzgerald Hibbert Award, the Elizabeth Hibbert Award, Leading By Example, the Family Patriarch Award, and the Hibbert Heritage Award were presented.
Saturday, August 1 — Emancipation Day — was Legacy Day. About forty-five of us travelled by charter bus to Dovecot Gardens in St. Catherine, the cemetery owned and operated by the Madden family of the Hazel Hibbert line, where we were joined by relatives from across the island. In the chapel we held a memorial service and read aloud the names of one hundred and fourteen family members, from 1889 to the present. That morning also saw the interment of Ruel Hibbert (Uncle Chubby) and Patricia Hibbert (Aunt Pat), returned to rest in the land they loved. The day closed at Devon House.
That evening the family met to talk about what comes next: a seven-area structure for the Hibbert Family Association, a mentoring program for our young ladies to match the Boys to Men retreats, and the milestone of ninety-nine dues-paying members — one third of the way to our goal of three hundred, and the beginning of the surplus that will become our Family Trust. Family members also carried hundreds of school supplies down with them, to be delivered to Pimento Walk Basic School at the start of the new school year.
The reunion closed on Sunday morning with a prayer breakfast in the Sun Garden.
Celebration 2026 was never only a vacation. It was a week spent enjoying the present, remembering those who came before us, welcoming those who have found their way back — and continuing to build a legacy that is truly worth celebrating
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Coming Soon
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The Solomon & Elizabeth Scholarship
Sanaa Neunie-Buchanan
Elijah Hibbert
Noah Neunie
Named Awards
The John Fitzgerald Hibbert Award — Sheryl Hibbert Morgan
The Elizabeth Hibbert Award — Nurse Corrine Hibbert
Leading By Example — Janice McIntosh (Global Jamaican Diaspora Council) and Captain John Reid (Aviation · Mentorship)
The Family Matriarch / Patriarch Award — Anthony "Hozan" Neunie
The Hibbert Heritage Award — Marcia Madden
Superlative Awards
First to Register — David & Katherine Hibbert
Most Reunion Spirit — Baby Harper
Most Recent Marriage — Kimana & Desarie
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