Happy Birthday, Robert E. Simon

Reston founder Robert E. Simon will be 97 years old on Sunday.

So far this week, Simon has attended the groundbreaking of the Reston Station project and the Reston Little League parade, as well as taken a couple of walks around Lake Anne Plaza.

Saturday was Founder's Day, where people stopped by to wish Simon a happy day, and thank him for 47 years of Reston.

His secret to a long and healthy life?

"I drink a gin martini every day," he said.

Simon was already middle-aged when he purchased the Virginia farmland that would become Reston - an integrated "new town" where people could work, live and play all in the same community.

Nearly 50 years later, Reston is thriving and Simon is its elder statesman.

"Bob Simon is really what we talk about when we talk about what our community is," Hunter Mill Supervisor Cathy Hudgins said on Saturday.

Hudgins also announced a new sustainability effort at Founder's Day. This ongoing project will ensure that Reston stays an innovative and environmentally conscious place going into the next 47 years.

Also wishing Simon well at Founder's Day - former Fairfax County Supervisor Kate Hanley; Virginia Del. Ken Plum and Virginia Sen. Janet Howell; developer Chuck Veatch, winner of 2010 Robert E. Simon Award for lifetime service to the community; Reston Chorale founder Beverly Cosham; former  chair Lynn Lilienthal; and dozens of Restonians, both young and old.

Cosham sang God Bless America to Simon on the plaza at Lake Anne, and brass ensembles serenaded Simon from the rooftops. There was a treasure hunt  that sent people all over Reston looking for clues, and visitors could record their oral histories of life in Reston as part of an ongoing project of the Reston Museum.

There was also a custom birthday cake with scenes of Reston.

"I hope Reston will stay true to the values Robert E. Simon established for Reston," Howell said. "Then it will be a wonderful place for 47 more years."