Obama's 1979 prom photo, yearbook note to 'foxy' friend unearthed Maurer, who played ball with Obama from the seventh grade through their senior year, said Julius Erving, better known as Dr. J, was their basketball hero. "He didn't say what country he wanted to be president of. Obama has told the story--one of the watershed moments of his racial awareness--time and again, in remarkable detail. The night, Obama later wrote, made him furious as he realized that whites held a "fundamental power" over blacks. ---------- Kirsten Scharnberg reported from Honolulu and Kim Barker from Jakarta, Indonesia; Tribune staff reporter Ray Gibson contributed to this report. The reality was less tidy. These previously unpublished photos, obtained exclusively by TIME from Obamas schoolmate Kelli Allman (ne McCormack), show a 17-year-old Barack Obama on the night of his senior prom. "And we were told he had already moved away." We have this tradition to head home to Hawaii for Christmas. Obama Tees off on Oracle Founder's Private Course - Newsmax Obama and his. Although the Choom Gang has come to define Mr. Obamas high school circle owing partly to the presidents memoir, Dreams From My Father, and a notation that Mr. Obama made in his senior yearbook thanking the group for good times Mr. Ramos said in an interview after leaving Oahu this week that the phrase does not describe their circle. I don't know why Greg would want to spend anytime with me at all! Obamas presidential prospects have been fueled in large part by an arresting life story: The son of a Kenyan goatherder, he wrestled with his dual identities to become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and a member of the U.S. Senate. ', In his memoir, 'Dreams From My Father,' Obama recalled a high school career that was, for the most part, ordinary 'marginal report cards and calls to the principal's office; part-time jobs at the burger chain; acne and driving tests and turbulent desire. With Obama just days away from turning over the reins to Donald Trump, Coach Mac and some of the guys young Barry played ball with at their Honolulu prep school reflected on his presidency and their playing years with pride. When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been who knows what it was?" More than 40 interviews with former classmates, teachers, friends and neighbors in his childhood homes of Hawaii and Indonesia, as well as a review of public records, show the arc of Obama's personal journey took him to places and situations far removed from the experience of most Americans. At the same time, several of his oft-recited stories may not have happened in the way he has recounted them. Obama recounts taking two white friends, including Orme, to a party attended almost entirely by African-Americans. We could all be hotheads at times, but he was very diplomatic, he said. But he wanted to make everybody happy." Chris McLachlin is seen at his house on Jan. 4 in Honolulu, Hawaii. We get together for golf, he said. Magazines, Digital Bendix said he and Obama learned most of their basketball moves on the playground. His character, the way he conducts himself, thats always been his footprint. As he listened, McLachlin never dreamed that one day this determined young man, who had spent most of that season warming the bench while the Punahou High School varsity basketball team was marching on to win the Hawaii state championship, would grow up to be Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States. For me its the unconditional love, its the nontransactional nature of the relationship that enduring quality that is something that I really value, he said. After years during which the friends grew apart, Mr. Obama reconnected with Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme a decade ago. One of the neatest things is that he has promoted family, he said. "Barry liked to draw heroes." 'He and I really clicked,' she told TIME. The havoc time wreaks on fashion spares no one, not even the president of the United States. In December 2006, as Mr. Obama decided on his first presidential campaign, the friends talked about how the race would complicate their next getaway. Since returning to his childhood home this month on vacation, President Barack Obama has spent a good part of most days cloistered with three people whose company puts him at ease. I saw an old forgotten man/On an old, forgotten road, begins the 12-line poem. But it was on the court in the off-season that Obama seemed to be even happier. Visits With School Pals Are a Touchstone on President's Trips to Hawaii Others are more skeptical that the boy known as Barry felt the angst described by Barack. I loved his game," he said. Millions of American teenagers will go to proms this year. But I was pretty wrapped up in my own world back then.. I dont want to accuse her of stealing it, but it was on the table when she arrived and it wasnt when she left, said Furushima. , updated He can really relate to people. Obama and his Punahou School classmates Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme enjoyed a sunny and breezy day on the links. Ann and the boy lived with the Dunhams in Honolulu until Obama was 6. (AFP OUT) U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and friend Greg Orme (R) wait to warm up on the driving range to play golf with friends December 29, 2008 in Kailua, Hawaii. Obamas family is already insulating itself. Still, Bendix said, his old pal should have been a starter at Punahou and insisted he was not just being loyal to an old friend. Basketball was the great equalizer, he said. Last year, a book delved into his teenage years and claimed that Obama and his friends formed The Choom Gang - slang for smoking marijuana - in which he invented inhaling techniques and rode a car called the Choomwagon. But Orme is a hard man to find. Their. While Obama's prom photographs have never been seen before, details have previously emerged about his high school years. While the foursome gets together in Hawaii over the holidays each year, Titcomb, Orme and Ramos. In another passage from the book, Ray complains that white Punahou girls don't want to date black guys and that he and Obama don't get enough playing time as athletes, speculating that they'd be "treated different if we was white. They compose notes to friends and family and include photos or quotes that best represent them. Obama, his mother and new baby sister, Maya, moved into a small apartment near the school's sprawling, lush campus. Yet those who knew him disputed that during recent interviews. If someone is brown, they can be Samoan or Fijian or Tongan. When youre on a school team, theres more discipline involved, he said. Hail to the chief's pals: Obama spending vacation relaxing with three Obama, too, was about to journey far from these familiar shores. Left: Kelli Allmans OAHUAN 1979 Yearbook. He took out (Osama) Bin Laden. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, TIME Exclusive: President Obamas 1979 Prom Photos. Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. In its reissue after he gave the keynote address at the Democratic convention in 2004, "Dreams from My Father" joined a long tradition of political memoirs that candidates have used to introduce themselves to the American people. He was probably studying them and learning from them. In the second term, presidents have often sought refuge from the pressure by disappearing into nature to fish or hunt, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. The annual gatherings perhaps speak to Mr. Obamas greater need for their connection now that he has what is called the loneliest job in the world. Outside of their regular vacation activities, the First Couple (along with Vice President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden) released their holiday playlists. I really admire that.. It was pretty typical from there out as far as what happens at prom: the dinner and the dancing and the photos.. Id put that up on e-Bay., Alan Lum, another teammate from the championship squad, who now teaches second grade at Punahou, has done enough interviews that his fellow teachers have started to rib him about his newfound fame. "I never knew, until reading the book later, how much that night had upset him." The number at Dunhams apartment in a nondescript Honolulu high rise has not changed in more than a quarter-century. Known as Ann throughout her adult life, she kept to herself. Barack Obama, #23, during his senior year at Punahou School, Honolulu. His love for Michelle and Sasha and Malia is outstanding. "He would be very helpful with friends. Those of us who were black did feel isolated--there's no question about that." Maybe we could have helped him. You can see how he was much more sensitive than the other guys, even back then.. The photos and interviews are in the new issue of TIME, which is out on Friday. After Obama's prom date with Megan Hughes and before settling down with Michelle during his time studying at Harvard, President Obama seriously dated two women: Alex McNear was a 20-year-old literature lover he met at Occidental College in 1981 before he transferred to Columbia in his junior year. And the accounts bear out much of Obama's self-portrait as someone deeply affected by his father's abandonment yet able to thrive in greatly disparate worlds. Hawaii friends Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme, Punahou Academy classmates, were also on hand. Hes kind of in and out. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. They sought out parties, especially at the military bases on the island, where African-Americans would be in attendance. Furushima said that many of her classmates have expressed dismay at Obamas rendering of the past. The real Ray, Keith Kakugawa, is half black and half Japanese. They're not his wife and daughters, who came with him, but a trio of pals whose friendship dates back to Obama's high school days in Hawaii. Marty Nesbitt, one of Obama's friends from . 'You really deserve better than clowns like us; you even laugh at my jokes! Among U.S. presidents, Obama is not alone in carving out time regularly to reconnect with his roots. "At the time, it was about basketball," said Orme, who has remained friends with Obama over the years and who plays basketball with him almost every Christmas when the two return to Hawaii to visit family. They're not his wife and daughters, who came with him, but a trio of pals whose friendship dates back to Obama's high school days in Hawaii. The havoc time wreaks on fashion spares no one, not even the president of the United States.In a newly unearthed photo published Thursday in TIME magazine, a 17-year-old Barack Obama is seen. You gotta give him that.. Back in 1979 he was known as Barry and he had a beef with his basketball coach. Kelli Allman is the pretty redhead pictured in the photo. "Did you know that in Thomas Jefferson's day, and right up through the 1930s, anybody who had the price of tuition could go to Harvard? Obama devotes many words in his book to exploring his outsider status at Punahou. You need to find Greg Orme, instructed Obamas old basketball coach, Chris McLachin. "There's no doubt that Keith's story is tragic and sad," Burton added. We were all cracking up and everyone was smiling," she told the magazine. So neither of us ever started and that was hard, he said. The Latest: Obama plays golf with longtime friends in Hawaii With a trimmed Afro, Hawaiian flower leis around his neck, Obama was surrounded by the disparate people who shaped him. I am not giving any interviews, Obamas grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, curtly interjected when a reporter phoned. Who are President Obama's golf buddies? - The Desert Sun I hope we can keep in touch this summer, even though Greg will be gone.'. She said a woman from People came to visit with her and then walked away with the Punahou reunion list and all its phone numbers. Former playmates remember Obama as "Barry Soetoro," or simply "Barry," a chubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today. Back then, Punahou was a completely open campus, with several basketball courts where 20-something men from Honolulu would come in the late afternoon for what often turned into flashy, highly competitive pickup sessions. Zulfan Adi was one of the neighborhood kids who teased Obama most mercilessly. The president turns 53 on Monday. No such photos, no such article. We had great vibes between us, she told TIME. And when Obama came back for Christmas, he got invited to join the new president at a pickup basketball game. On the lower half of the seventh-grade page is the same group, under a heading of Useless Races in America. The joke, it seems, is on intolerance. HONOLULU -- Until recently, the players on Hawaiis 1979 state basketball championship team thought their glory days were behind them, consigned to yearbooks and faded newspaper clippings. It took about five hours for the president and his playing partners Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme, and Darrell . Genevieve Cook, an elementary school teacher, and Obama met at a Christmas party in the East Village in 1983. Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the magazine. The images from 1979 show a grinning 17-year-old Obama in a white suit with his arm around his date, Megan Hughes, before they headed to the party at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. ", We would be like, Hey lets go to the beach, Bendix recalled. What Obama and his companions talk about during their many hours alone is anyone's guess. His biggest struggles were his feelings of abandonment. We are just such a mixed-up bag of races. The U.S. military was expanding on the island of Oahu, home to the new capital of Honolulu. With his friends, he would drive the Choomwagon, a Volkswagen microbus, to Mount Tantalus, biographer David Maraniss wrote. The 1979 photo was snapped inside the home of former classmate, Kelli Allman, who was the prom date of the pr, Fashion alert! Life without a father It was a complicated time. Obama never became terribly close with the children of the new school--this time a predominantly Muslim one--where he was enrolled. He's lived in Colorado, but was listed as a North Carolina resident when in 2012 he attended a state dinner at the White House that Obama held for British Prime Minister David Cameron. Ramadi fell to IS in May, marking a major setback for Iraq and the U.S. "It was a really fun, happy time. Furushima paused, then sighed, pointing out how the potential president was prone to drawing a little Afro atop the B and the O on his signature. He played several rounds on the nine-hole course with Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme, childhood friends from Hawaii who flew in to meet the president. They marked the 10th year of their rendezvous by looking through old photos, Mr. Ramos said, of when the kids were young and the dads had dark hair. And of course, he said, they all the president included reflected on the past year. Wearing a white shirt and dark-colored shorts and a baseball hat, President Barack Obama finished 18 holes of golf at the Kapolei Golf Course in Kapolei, Hawaii. I cant tell if someone is Fijian or black.. Their new neighborhood was only 3 miles to the west, but a world away. Barack Obama as a sophomore with the junior varsity basketball team at Punahou School, Honolulu, in 1977. (Photo by Joaquin Siopack-Pool/Getty Images) It was hard to imagine that he felt that way, because he just seemed happy all the time, smiling all the time, she said. He was a younger black man looking for guidance." Cook wrote that she saw his perfect woman as 'very strong, very upright, a fighter, a laugher, experienced - a black woman I keep seeing her as'. One place Obama has said he found a sense of community was on the basketball court. In his day, he was a better basketball player than a golfer. Franklin D. Roosevelt made frequent trips back to Hyde Park, N.Y., throwing picnics or barbecues for former neighbors and friends, and George H.W. Topolinski, who now lives in Washington state, said he lost touch with Obama after high school and they moved into different political camps. With rain drizzling over Oahu, Obama's motorcade whisked Obama across the island to Titcomb's beachside home in Waialua, about an hour outside of Honolulu on the North Shore. We have had presidents who have not modeled that super well., We had a long basketball career together, Orme recalled in a telephone interview from his home in Eugene, Oregon. Speaking up for yourself., I gave them more playing time, McLachlin chuckled. Bush remained pals with men he served with in World War II. Or Japanese. Obama played basketball at Punahou with Orme, who the alumni magazine says is now a building contractor. He has ethnic Chinese mother and his father was Polish. "Suddenly we asked, `Where's Barry?' Orme recalled that years later, at Obama's wedding reception in Chicago, Obama brought the crowd to tears when he spoke of his recently deceased maternal grandfather and how he made a little boy with an absent father feel as though he was never alone. Far less is known about Obama's buddies, of course, than about the president himself. In Hawaii, our diversity defines us, it doesnt divide us, said Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a close friend of Obamas father in graduate school in the early 60s. Ramos is most often referred to in stories about his relations with the president as a businessman. They were. As he had at the old school, Obama sat in a back corner. One day while visiting his mother, who was working at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Obama passed time by looking through several issues of Life magazine. They divorced after seven years of marriage and have a daughter. Now, I think hes a better golfer., Orme and Obama became pals not long after the future president arrived at Punahou as a fifth grader. Thats what we did to fit in, he said. We have so many tones of brown here. As it made its way over the mountain pass, he took in views of the lush, green and misty Koolau mountains. "Like being black was a funny costume in and of itself," recalled Smith, now a doctor who specializes in geriatrics in California. Obama Hits Russia, the Gym and the Beach Thursday, Dec. 29 That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote in "Dreams." "He's not like that." Mr. Ramos was a year ahead of Mr. Obama's Punahou class of '79, but played with him on the basketball. "He'd go right up to the coach during a game and say, `Coach, we're killing this team. Many of the men were black. "He had a pretty good shot and really handled the ball well.. But after practice theyd hit the public courts. He'd pick them up if they fell down,'' Darmawan recalled. He was always very calm, very level-headed, very rational. The White House says Obama teed off Saturday at the nine-hole course at the Sunnylands retreat in Rancho Mirage with childhood friends Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme and Michael Ramos. Hes exhibited class and dignity all the way through it. Obama admits in "Dreams" that during high school he frequently smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, even used cocaine occasionally. A high school friend has shared photographs of Obama at his prom night withTIME magazine - as well as a very friendly note he penned in her yearbook, in which he calls her 'sweet and foxy'. "We'd all do things together, but Obama was never there," Smith said, adding that they often brought along the few other black underclassmen. While Obama got saddled with the nickname Barry OBomber, Maurer said he also "got teased a lot for taking hard to make shots.". Some of these discrepancies are typical of childhood memories -- fuzzy in specifics, warped by age, shaped by writerly license. Obama and his family have . Memories of a racial awakening? All four were classmates at Punahou School in Honolulu, which Obama has described as 'a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites. So far, the candidacy of the man known by his high school friends as Barry Obama has been good for the Hawaii economy and bad for newsroom budgets. He struggled greatly with the foreign language, she said, and with his studies as a result. Others almost certainly illustrate how carefully the young man guarded the secret of his loneliness from even those who knew him best. Daily Mail Reporter In fact, it is surprising, based on interviews with more than two dozen people who knew Obama during his nearly four years in Indonesia, that it would take a photograph in a magazine to make him conscious of the fact that some people might treat him differently in part because of the color of his skin. The Los Angeles Times weighed in the other day. President Obama may have had a tough couple of weeks, but newly-released images will remind him of his more carefree days. The fourth person in the picture is Obama's date,Megan Hughes. In an interview with the Tribune on Saturday, Kakugawa said he always considered himself mixed race, like so many of his friends in Hawaii, and was not an angry young black man. Their photos are more likely to be stored on Facebook than in a shoe box. 'You are extremely sweet and foxy, I don't know why Greg would want to spend any time with me at all!' Vanity Fair is coming soon. Obama hangs with high school buds during Hawaii vacation Those are qualities a president should have. Get-togethers in the decades after high school were rare as the men built careers and families, although Mr. Ramos, Mr. Titcomb and Mr. Orme attended the Obamas Chicago wedding in 1992. His wife and daughters are skiing in Colorado. He didnt have to see me, but he was a man of his word, he said. If Obama did show flashes of anger or hurt, according to friends and teammates, it sprang from his lack of minutes on the basketball court more than his angst as a young black man in a multiracial society. Obama Golfs With Childhood Friends In California - CBS Sacramento Some of the Betawi children threw rocks at the open Catholic classrooms, remembered Cecilia Sugini Hananto, who taught Obama in 2nd grade. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy. A member of the varsity squad, though not a starter, Obama and his teammates brought Punahou the state championship in 1979, his senior year. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Incredible footage of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russians in Bakhmut, Fleet-footed cop chases an offender riding a scooter, Two Russian tanks annihilated with bombs by Ukrainian armed forces, Isabel Oakeshott clashes with Nick Robinson over Hancock texts, Dozens stuck in car park as staff refuses to open gate for woman, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA.
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