Even at 80, Brother Venard Ruane never forgets a name or a face.

Somehow, he remembers scores of Maryknoll School alumni — back even to the 1950s — looking past gray hair and wrinkles to see the spry boys and girls he joked with daily at the school, coached, took on field trips or taught in catechism class.

"He's the campus memory," said Maryknoll President Mike Baker.

"He can tell you every student who went to the school."

At a farewell breakfast for Ruane yesterday, the brother — and his memory — didn't disappoint. As Maryknoll graduates in their 40s, 50s and 60s came up in droves to say goodbye to Ruane, he delighted them by remembering the smallest details of their schoolhouse days, from their favorite pastimes to their worst blunders.

After more than 50 years of serving the Catholic community in Honolulu, as everything from a bus driver at Maryknoll School to the head of maintenance at Sacred Hearts Parish, Ruane will move to California at the end of March.

He is the last of only nine Maryknoll brothers who have served in Hawai'i over the last 50 years to leave. Three sisters and a handful of Maryknoll priests remain.

About 100 alumni, administrators and parents at Maryknoll School honored Ruane yesterday with a breakfast at the Japanese Cultural Center.

He was showered with lei, hugs, handshakes and praise.

Maryknoll School also gave him a wooden chair, inscribed on the back with, "To Brother Venard, for your long service." In a speech at the event, Baker said the chair was meant to remind Ruane he needs to sit down in his retirement, after a long career of helping others. "We're going to miss you like crazy," Baker told Ruane.

When he received the gift, Ruane smiled bashfully and nodded. He chose not to speak at the breakfast, preferring instead to talk to people individually.

Ruane said he will be moving to a retirement home for Maryknoll brothers and priests in Los Altos, Calif. "I will miss these people," he said yesterday at the breakfast, between hugging alumni and posing for photos.

In 1952, Ruane came to the Islands, where he was assigned to Sacred Heart Church in Honolulu. For nearly two decades, he worked at Maryknoll School in a slew of jobs — everything from a bus driver and catechism teacher to a Boy Scout leader.

He was also the school's first athletic director, a job he held for nine years.

In the 1970s, Ruane left Hawai'i for two years to manage a Maryknoll House in New York City. When he returned, he worked at Sacred Heart Parish. But he was still a fixture on the Maryknoll campus, well-loved by children.

In addition to volunteering at the school, Ruane also ministered at Shriners Hospital for Children on Punahou Street.

Ruane retired in 2002, and was invited to live at the Sacred Heart rectory.

But even in his retirement, he kept active, opening and closing Sacred Heart Church daily, and volunteering at Honolulu shelters and Shriners.

Michelle Tokunaga Morikami, who graduated from Maryknoll in 1965, said Ruane was known as the "Pied Piper" — he always had a crowd of kids following him, laughing at his jokes and listening to his every word.

"We grew up with him," Morikami said. "He was our family."