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CEYLON -- Kavan Ratnatunga is a Sri Lanka native, and remembers when Sri Lanka was originally called Ceylon. Living in the U.S for several years and preparing to go back to his homeland, he decided to visit the towns in the U.S. that have his country's namesake, including his weekend visit to Martin County.
"They changed from Ceylon to Sri Lanka in 1972," Kavan said. "But many people still refer to it as Ceylon."
Along with Ceylon, Minnesota, Kavan visited Ceylon towns in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania earlier this week.
"This is the biggest Ceylon town I've been to," he said.
His curiosity of the U.S. Ceylon towns started around 1997, as he was looking up some information on the Internet.
"I came across an entry that said Walter Mondale was born in Ceylon, and I thought, 'That can't be right," Kavan said with a laugh. "But it turns out it was Ceylon, Minnesota."
Intrigued by the town that had the same name as his homeland, Kavan looked up some listed e-mail addresses for Ceylon residents. One e-mail address he contacted was that of Jerry Rosenberg, who sent Kavan a reply.
"He started giving me some of the history of Ceylon, how it was named after the tea," Kavan said.
Kavan kept in touch with Rosenburg, and began collecting items from Ceylon, including old tokens that were good at Ceylon businesses.
"He has a bigger collection than I have," marveled Marlon Bents, president of State Bank of Ceylon.
Kavan even set up Web sites for Ceylon, including the website used for the Ceylon Centennial celebration in 2000.
During Kavan's time overseas, he's also spent time in Australia and Canada, and was a professor in astronomy at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. But he is now planning to go into semi-retirement in Sri Lanka.
"Before I went, I wanted to see the towns of Ceylon," he said. "The Ceylon in Pennsylvania is only 50 miles away from D.C., where I was last week, so I went through there. On Monday, I went through Ohio's Ceylon, Tuesday, it was Indiana, and now I am here."
Kavan is staying with Rosenburg and plans to stay in Ceylon until Sunday. "I hope to meet a lot of people here," he said.