Creola Ruffin
Creola Ruffin is a licensed practicing attorney and one term president of the Mobile Vernon Crawford Bar Association. She grew up in the Down The Bay area of Mobile, Alabama and lived next door to Argiros Beer Parlor where she learned to appreciate jazz. Attending college at Dillard University, a HBCU in New Orleans, Louisiana, her interest in jazz widened. In 1998, along with friends, Issac and Sandra Thomas, she formed the Gulf Coast Ethnic & Heritage Jazz Festival. The first festival was held in 1999 in Mobile and The MarcusJohnson Summer Jazz Camp for students 7-21 took off in 2003. The festival is held In Downtown Mobile the last weekend of July and is now in its 28th year. Learning that many music legends was born in Mobile or at some point lived in Mobile, Ruffin has now launched a project to preserve the music and history of those legends for future generations, Celebration of Mobile Music Legends.