U.S. Army Spc. Ralea Scott returned home to St. Charles Parish on Friday of last week from a long overseas deployment for a surprise reunion with her eight-year-old daughter at a recent St. Charles Parish Public School (SCPPS) field trip event held at the Lafon Performing Arts Center.
Scott, 28, was stationed the last nine months in the Middle East, her first deployment since enlisting with the Army in March 2013.
“I was in Jordan for the first five months [of my deployment], and then finished the last four [months] in Kuwait,” Scott, an Army mechanic, explained of her time away from her hometown of Des Allemands.
The surprise Lafon Center reunion on the morning of Dec. 1 was somewhat of a covert mission, coordinated between the military mom and a group of SCPPS teachers and administrators. Working together, they were able to keep mum on her true arrival date and genuinely surprise both her eight-year-old daughter Harlem Scott and Ralea Scott’s own mother, Dawn Scott, 52, who had been caring for Harlem during Ralea’s long deployment.
Scott’s family believed she would not return home until January 2024. Unbeknownst to her mother and daughter, Scott had been as close as Houston since Nov. 19, going through medical clearance protocol before being formally released back home to St. Charles Parish.
Organizers of the field trip event had Scott’s young daughter Harlem “randomly selected” from the student audience to help with a special student task on the Lafon stage. After being introduced to the cheering crowd of around 500 SCPPS students attending the field trip event, Harlem Scott was quickly swept up into the arms of her mother Ralea, who had been waiting anxiously in the wings to greet her.
Until that moment on stage, the Allemands Elementary second grader had previously only connected with her mother for most of 2023 via regular video chats. The two shared a long, tearful embrace on stage, lasting several minutes.
Dawn Scott, who had been caring for granddaughter Harlem Scott while Ralea was away, was also lured in by school officials to attend to a matter regarding Harlem, never realizing who she’d stumble across at the Lafon Performing Arts Center lobby until shortly after arrival. She too succumbed to her own tearful reunion with her daughter Ralea, as a crowd gathered around them to photograph and share in their tears of joy after being reunited.
While working in both Jordan and Kuwait, Scott said she and her daughter learned how to cope with the temporary separation together. Mother and daughter would video conference regularly via Facetime, at first just twice per week at the beginning of her busy deployment, but as time permitted in the final days leading up to returning home, Spc. Scott said she they were able to Facetime every day.
“I kept the communication open for [Harlem],” Scott said. “If I knew I couldn’t Facetime her, I made sure she was able to text me, and I would say little inspirational things in the morning that she would read – just to know that I was still there.”
After arriving home to St. Charles Parish, Scott said she had already begun hatching plans on how she and her daughter would spend time together reconnecting in the coming days.
“I want to do a Five Below shopping spree, and [Harlem] has been [asking to try the beignets at] PJ’s Coffee, because her teacher brings PJ’s Coffee to school all the time, so…maybe there too,” Scott said with a smile. “We have a couple of stops to make, I’m sure.”
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