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LARRY RABIN: Commercial Real Estate Agent and
Class President-for-Life
If there is any one person who single-handedly pulled our class together, organized reunions, and helped us to develop friendships as adults, it is Larry Rabin. Some years ago we voted him Class President-for-Life. He keeps trying to resign, but we won’t let him. Larry will always be our Class President-for-Life.
At the beginning of the pandemic Larry retired from his successful and award-winning career as a commercial realtor. He began his real estate career in 1986 with the commercial division of Latter & Blum. Within a few years he moved over to Corporate Realty, where he was named the director of the retail division, covering Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. He had the exclusive representation of nationally recognized retailers such as Best Buy, TJ Maxx, Lowe's, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Costco, among many others.
Larry is married to Ann Rabin, who graduated from Newman the year after our class. He and Ann dated when they were at Newman and into college. Ann was studying at the University of Denver, and the two drifted apart. Each married someone else, and each had two children. They both divorced, and in January 1988 Larry telephoned Ann to take her to lunch. They married in September 1988 and have been married for 34 years. Larry is proud of their marriage and proud of raising a blended family.
When one of his daughters was diagnosed with ADHD, Larry began to wonder if he also had ADHD, which of course was not diagnosed in the 1950s or 1960s. He described himself as “not a great student at Newman.” He did well in math, but he had difficulty concentrating on reading. As he described it, he would have to read a page “over and over” in order to comprehend and retain the information, a typical symptom of ADHD. Even though he had some difficulty with his studies, Larry stated that he had a great time at Newman.
Larry’s father had a heart attack when he was 47 and Larry was 20. He and his mother were thrust into the family’s retail clothing business “cold turkey.” Larry’s paternal grandfather Isaac Rabin had started the clothing business in 1927. Its focus was on traditional women’s clothing, and to make his work life more interesting and challenging, Larry opened five more clothing stores, “The Crate,” with an emphasis on a younger clientele, and "Designers’ Anonymous," which catered to higher-end customers. He ran the family stores for the last 15 years of their existence.
Larry attributes his success in retail clothing and commercial real estate to his being “a people person.” His focus was on making connections, building relationships, and maintaining consistency. He was trusted by his corporate clients because he consistently put their interests first, doing what was best for their long-term interests rather than his short-term financial gain.
Interestingly, although he had some difficulty with focusing on written material at Newman, he discovered in his career that he had an outstanding visual-spatial memory. When meeting with a client, for example, he could easily recall, for example, exactly where a particular retail site was located, and without consulting his notes, he could describe the details of the associated demographics to his clients.
Around our 25th reunion, Larry noticed that attendance was low. He set about building participation with an emphasis on our interpersonal relationships, as opposed to promoting or fund-raising for Newman. His view was that the reunions were about us and not so much about Newman. As with his real estate career, Larry was persistent in making connections and building trust. By the 40th reunion he noticed something very interesting. The cliques that had kept people apart in high school were dissolving, and people were enjoying communicating with people they hadn’t known well when they were in school.
Larry made his approach to the class both very inclusive and non-judgmental. He reached out to every person who had ever been in the class of 1967 at Newman. It didn’t matter how many years people had attended Newman, what kind of students they had been, or why they left before graduating with the class. Whatever the reasons, relationships that had endured since kindergarten were, and are, profoundly important. And for those of us who started later at Newman, we were impressed and honored to get to know those who left before we arrived. Larry reflected, “I take a lot of pride in what I’ve been able to accomplish for the class. It has certainly been a labor of love."
In my recent interview with Larry, it occurred to me that his work over the years had laid the foundation for my website and for my growing interest in the creative work of the class of 1967. I was already interested in the “Newman artists” in the class when I was there, and I interviewed them for The Pioneer. But it was at the 35th reunion at Mosca’s, when I happened to be seated next to Charles Wickstrom, that I discovered yet another Newman artist and felt astounded by the creativity in our class.
Larry and Ann have endured two major challenges during their marriage. The first was Hurricane Katrina, which flooded their Lakeview home with seven feet of water. Their children were ages 25 to 29, and Ann was planning to retire at the end of 2005 from her two decades of work as the director of education and volunteer services at the Audubon Zoo. They salvaged what they could, and went on to purchase and renovate a 1930s home with a multi-level floor plan.
About six years later Larry began to limp, and he was eventually diagnosed with a rare muscular degenerative disorder, Inclusion Body Myositis. This development meant that their multi-level floor plan in their new home would no longer be workable. Soon afterwards, Larry went from crutches to wheelchair. They built a new home a block and a half from St. Charles Avenue and a block from Newman, with a plan for the couple to live on the first floor and the second floor to accommodate visiting family members, including their seven grandchildren. Ann worked with designers to anticipate how Larry would enter and move freely from room to room, which also meant that the house has a great flow for entertaining. Larry and Ann opened their beautiful home to the class of 1967 for our 50th reunion, a very special occasion in many ways.
Larry and Ann with their seven grandchildren.
Larry recently lost his mother, Sarah Rabin, age 95. She had met Larry’s father, Sam Rabin, when she was 19 years old and attending Soulè Business College. She was only 42 when Sam had a heart attack and wasn't able to work, requiring Larry and his mother to enter the business. A very interesting comment in her recent obituary was that she always had the best visual aids for her children’s school projects, “whether they were replicas of cities, battlegrounds or the human body.”
A high school photo of Larry with friends David Haspel and Charles Wicksrom.
When I started the interview process with Larry, I had no idea that he had ADHD and visual-spatial strengths. I was learning about yet another member of the class of 1967 whose creativity and success were related to characteristics viewed as learning issues. I had wondered why Larry was the person to lead the class and bring us together, and I began to see that the same strengths that led to his career success were at the basis of his class president success. He is a “people person,” with loyalty in his long-term relationships. His close friends from Newman are still his close friends. And individuals with visual-spatial strengths are better able to see the big picture and to observe social cues, which Larry has certainly done in bringing us together. The following photograph of Ann and Larry symbolizes for me what Larry means to our class.
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