"Luckily he could swim. While Obama's prom photographs have never been seen before, details have previously emerged about his high school years. 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. Known as Ann throughout her adult life, she kept to herself. "We'd all do things together, but Obama was never there," Smith said, adding that they often brought along the few other black underclassmen. (D-Hawaii), a close friend of Obama . Isnt that sweet? she asked. "But it could be a lonely place. He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian in just six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric of Jakarta. We all come from so many backgrounds, we have to get along., Obamas teammates for the most part are careful not to judge an old friend, even if his memories of racial attitudes at Punahou differ from their own. Like Mr. Obama, he was of mixed parentage the son of a Filipino father and a Czech mother and his parents were divorced. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. kscharnberg@tribune.com kbarker@tribune.com, Column: For the Chicago Blackhawks remodel to work, their new house had better be built on a strong foundation, Merrillville food and beverage tax edging closer to reality, Remains found in Rockdale more than 25 years ago identified as Aurora woman, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Because hes a pastor, Maurer said he prefers not to weigh-in on politics. So neither of us ever started and that was hard, he said. The reality was less tidy. 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. "He lived across the street from school and before classes hed shoot baskets on the outside courts, then at lunch hed shoot more baskets, then Id have him for three hours, then hed go home, eat supper, and then be outside again shooting baskets.. "It is a shame we have to worry so much about [grade point], but you know what the college entrance competition is these days," she wrote. 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. We are just such a mixed-up bag of races. There are, however, chapters in Obamas high school narrative that are not subject to dispute. ", We would be like, Hey lets go to the beach, Bendix recalled. He posed in lifeguard stands. Some of the Betawi children threw rocks at the open Catholic classrooms, remembered Cecilia Sugini Hananto, who taught Obama in 2nd grade. 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. 'We were all cracking up, and everyone was smiling.'. On prom night, the pair double-dated. 'Many people call Obama aloof, and he hasn't made a lot of friends in Washington,' Brinkley said. I saw an old forgotten man/On an old, forgotten road, begins the 12-line poem. He was a good player inside and out, Orme recalled. The White House says Obama is playing golf with some of his longtime friends including Mike Ramos, Greg Orme and Bobby Titcomb. Asked Saturday about Kakugawa's recollections, the Obama campaign declined to make the senator available. "It just wasn't a race thing," he reiterated again and again. Most classmates and teachers recall an easygoing, slightly chunky young man, with the same infectious smile he sports today. Some of that crew has stayed in Hawaii, but others have moved off island. The race to track them down and coax them to open up likely will include reporters as well as opposition research experts for political rivals. "He was built like a bull. He also thanked the "Choom Gang," a reference to "chooming," Hawaiian slang for smoking marijuana. "But it wasn't a race thing," he said. They got back in touch when she visited New York in 1982, before continuing a long-distance relationship that eventually fizzled out, according to his biographer David Maraniss. Titcomb and Orme are part of a group of Obama's friends who reunite in Hawaii every year, a practice that continued even after Obama became president. The term wasn't considered a slur at the time in Indonesia. . She also sent advice about his future. IE 11 is not supported. 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. I wish I would have known that those things were bothering him, or if they did bother him, said Eric Kusunoki, Obamas homeroom teacher from grades nine through 12. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital (Courtesy Maya Soetoro-Ng ), The life stories, when the presidential candidate tells them, have a common theme: the quest to belong. His love for Michelle and Sasha and Malia is outstanding. Im incredibly proud of my friend. Tucked away in someone elses shoe box of adolescent artifacts, there might be a picture of you in garish clothes and with an outdated do, your arm around a high school squeeze. Alan Lum, who later would coach the basketball team at Punahou as well as teach elementary school there, recalled Obama as always being the first to confront coaches when he felt they were not fairly allotting playing time. 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. ", Every day after practice hed stay to play pickup games against the coaching staff," he said. Throughout his youth, as depicted in his first book, he always found ways to meld into even the most uninviting of communities. President Obama may have had a tough couple of weeks, but newly-released images will remind him of his more carefree days. 21:01 GMT 31 Dec 2014. "He'd go right up to the coach during a game and say, `Coach, we're killing this team. "He was a very provocative thinker. Magazines, Digital It was hard to imagine that he felt that way, because he just seemed happy all the time, smiling all the time, she said. Obama and his family have . Rik Smith, a black Punahou student two years older than Obama, remembers a Halloween when white students would dress as slaves, coming to school in tattered clothes with their faces painted black with shoe polish. And when tempers flared, Barry was the peacemaker. Obama is spending the weekend golfing with Punahou School friends Greg Orme, Bobby Titcomb and Mike Ramos ahead of a summit of Southeast Asian leaders at the Sunnylands estate in Rancho. 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. ---------- Kirsten Scharnberg reported from Honolulu and Kim Barker from Jakarta, Indonesia; Tribune staff reporter Ray Gibson contributed to this report. We had great vibes between us, she told TIME. Coaches have recalled how he never went anywhere without a ball. The havoc time wreaks on fashion spares no one, not even the president of the United States. Kakugawa explained that he had meant they were playing in the world of the elite people who populated and ran Punahou--famous Hawaiian families like the Doles, owners of the pineapple fortune, or the original developers of Waikiki, the tourist mecca. The night, Obama later wrote, made him furious as he realized that whites held a "fundamental power" over blacks. "We were champions and I think it helped him become the man he is today. Darin Maurer and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. He is 9 years old, living in Indonesia, where he and his mother moved with her new husband, Lolo Soetoro, a few years earlier. "I went to those parties up at Schofield but never saw him at any of them." Right around then, we really started getting into basketball., Obama was all business when it came to "the game. Obamas family is already insulating itself. Obama and his mother joined her new husband, a kind man who later would become a detached heavy drinker and womanizer, family members in Indonesia say. As you know, he made getting better health care for Americans one of his missions.. He recently played golf with his boyhood friend on a return to Hawaii, and the president also invited him to his 49th birthday party in. 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. Daily Mail Reporter, Images show Obama ahead of his prom night in Honolulu in 1979, The Obamas to return to Martha's Vineyard? He is unyielding in the things he believes in., I think hes done an unbelievable job as president, he said. Both of them seemed surprised to hear that in "Dreams"--which neither of them had read--Obama writes about routinely going to parties at Schofield Barracks and other military bases in order to hang out with "Ray," who like Anthony and Smith was two years ahead of him in school. Greg Orme, a fellow varsity basketball player, was Obama's constant companion. Obama, his mother and new baby sister, Maya, moved into a small apartment near the school's sprawling, lush campus. Bailey, who coached Obama during his junior year and now runs an ambulance service, said young Barry was a "gym rat. "Barry liked to draw heroes." We are no longer accepting comments on this article. From his earliest moments on the national political stage, Obama has presented himself as having two unique qualifications: a fresh political face and an ability to bridge the gap between Americans of different races, faiths and circumstances. In December 2006, as Mr. Obama decided on his first presidential campaign, the friends talked about how the race would complicate their next getaway. Half the homes were old bamboo huts; half, including the Soetoro house, were nicer, with brick or concrete and red-tiled roofs. Cook, who was 25, and Obama, then 22, dated for 18 months, passing their time discussing books and cooking. And like Obama, he found his place on the basketball court. His wife and daughters are skiing in Colorado. By
With a trimmed Afro, Hawaiian flower leis around his neck, Obama was surrounded by the disparate people who shaped him. 'He and I really clicked,' she told TIME. Anyone can read what you share. But we never talked race." A young black man struggles for acceptance at an institution of privilege, where he finds himself growing so angry and disillusioned at the world around him that he turns to alcohol and drugs. "Stanley loved that little boy," said Abercrombie, now a Democratic congressman from Hawaii. I think if people were one-on-one with him, theyd see things his way Look at how hes treated President-elect Trump. But such solitude has become less and less attainable for presidents in modern times. Once content to join their parents for outings to the aquarium or to get shave ice, Sasha and Malia are now more independent. When his mother, a woman said to have been born with a keen sense of wanderlust, announced she was returning to Indonesia, Obama, then a teenager, asked to stay in Hawaii, according to Soetoro-Ng, 36, who still lives in Honolulu. President-elect Barack Obama and friend Greg Orme wait to warm up on the driving range to play golf with friends December 29, 2008 in Kailua, Hawaii.. President-elect Barack Obama hugs friend Greg Orme before a round of golf December 29, 2008 at the Mid Pacific Country Club in Kailua, Hawaii. 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. That thoughtful poet is not remembered by any of his basketball buddies, coaches or friends. Obama, the son of a black father and white mother, stood out. 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. It is the same one that a young Obama wrote in the yearbook of a petite black-haired beauty named Kelli Furushima -- the object of his high school crush. And he clearly didn't appreciate that," Orme said. "One of us said that being the different guys in the room had awakened a little bit of empathy to what he must feel all the time at school. If young Obama had struggled to find a place at Punahou, it was well hidden on this day as well. But Obama never gave up and his work ethic was second to none on this team. So did Maurer, who is now a pastor in Houston. They were like brothers, says Allman. But he wanted to make everybody happy." But he took the high road and showed a lot of integrity. Even though Trump is a loose cannon at least he will stick up for what he believes.. Then there's the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. He can really relate to people. As much as he may have felt like an outsider at times, Obama rarely seemed to show it. The real Ray, Keith Kakugawa, is half black and half Japanese. I am not giving any interviews, Obamas grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, curtly interjected when a reporter phoned. In a May 21, 2008 Sports Illustrated interview, Obama spoke of the importance of basketball in his life. In the six weeks since Obama announced his intention to run for the White House, he routinely has suggested that his diverse background--raised for a time in the Third World, schooled at elite institutions and active in urban politics--makes him the best-suited candidate to speak to rich and poor, black and white, mainstream voters and those utterly disenchanted with the political system. 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. Ramadi fell to IS in May, marking a major setback for Iraq and the U.S. But, said Mr. Ramos, who is in the process of a divorce, We probably spent more time talking about my situation than we did about his., Visits With School Pals Are a Touchstone on Presidents Trips to Hawaii, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/us/politics/visits-with-school-pals-are-a-touchstone-on-presidents-trips-to-hawaii.html, opposite sides of the debate over crime and policing, prohibiting the use of the gender-neutral term in government documents, an array of forces has bolstered this groups presence in Congress and state legislatures. This article originally appeared in the May 23, 2013 edition of TIME magazine underneath the title, Obamas Grand Old Party. To subscribe to TIME, click here. Then his young mother, now divorced, met and married an Indonesian student studying at the University of Hawaii. Hawaii had become a state only two years before Obama's birth, and there were plenty of native Hawaiians still deeply unhappy about it. Although their paths have long since diverged, they've made it a point to gather for frequent reunions, in one of Obama's most visible links to the days when his life was much simpler and his problems more mundane. The foursome, according to the Associated Press, teed off with another eight players. 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. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. Aging photos show Obama and Orme decked out in 1970s fashion with their dates before attending a high school prom. The Hawaii holidays became more and more appealing, he said in an interview just after he began his run for president. He said they adored his slam-dunking style and no-look passing, but their coaches were not fans. Our coaches were much more conservative, he said. "I brood," Mr. Obama's friend Mr. Ramos said a few years ago. Obama played basketball at Punahou with Orme, who the alumni magazine says is now a building contractor. 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'. He took out (Osama) Bin Laden. He was the only foreign child in the neighborhood. Genevieve Cook, an elementary school teacher, and Obama met at a Christmas party in the East Village in 1983. They sought out parties, especially at the military bases on the island, where African-Americans would be in attendance. All four were classmates at Punahou School in Honolulu, which Obama has described as 'a prestigious prep school, an incubator for island elites. Associated Press
Titcomb, who golfed another two days with Obama this month before the others got into town, was a year behind Obama at Punahou. If this story is eight paragraphs, seven of them go to Greg. Topolinski laughed when he recalled how they both tried out for the schools football team. KAILUA, HI - DECEMBER 29: (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. Obama spent the weekend in California after meeting Friday at a resort with Jordan's king. The same as in Washington, Orme said. Chris McLachlin is seen at his house on Jan. 4 in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Photo by Joaquin Siopack-Pool/Getty Images) Obama is. McCormack - now Kelli Allman - told TIME that the group sipped champagne before enjoying an evening of photos, dinner and dancing. Furushima said that many of her classmates have expressed dismay at Obamas rendering of the past. He knew the really small apartment that Mr. Obama lived in with his grandparents and what a talker Gramps was. It wasnt until 2008, when Obama was making his first run for president, that they saw each other again at a fundraiser. They divorced after seven years of marriage and have a daughter. Daily Mail Reporter
The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg. "I did say we were playing in their world," he explained, "but that had nothing to do with race. Topolinski said neither he nor Obama were stars on their high school team. Obama admits in "Dreams" that during high school he frequently smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, even used cocaine occasionally. We had to prove ourselves, focus on playing good ball. TIME Magazine obtained and published this picture of President Obama the night of his senior prom in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1979, from his classmate Kelli Allman. He even scored a basket," he said. John F. Kennedy had his band of brothers from wartime. Likewise for Mr. Obama, it seems. Many of the men were black. WASHINGTON President Obama has called Hawaii his refuge, and so it has been throughout his political life. Bobby Titcomb Photos Photos - US President Barack Obama repares to putt on the 18th green as friend Greg Orme retrieves his ball and Darell Harrington (2nd R) and Bobby Titcomb (R) look on at the . "I don't imagine the decision to let him stay behind was an easy one for anyone," Soetoro-Ng said. "In the absence of his father, there was not a kinder, more understanding man than Stanley Dunham. In August, Obama kicked off his 53rd birthday weekend golfing with the three friends in suburban Maryland before heading to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains. 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. But the reality felt far different for the handful of African-Americans attending classes there. Once parked, they 'turned up their stereos playing Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult and Stevie Wonder, lit up some sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds and washed it down with green bottled beer (the Choom Gang preferred Heineken, Becks, and St. Pauli Girl).'. This is the Barry I remember.. From left: Greg Orme, Kelli Allman, Barack Obama and Megan Hughes at Allmans parents house in Honolulu. 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. 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. Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb, and Greg Orme-friends from Obama's high school daze in Hawaii-joined the president for a round on the links at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Saturday morning. Oblivious to all of this was a perpetually smiling toddler the entire family called Barry. The number at Dunhams apartment in a nondescript Honolulu high rise has not changed in more than a quarter-century. Hes exhibited class and dignity all the way through it. The pretty blonde on the right was the future president's prom date. We get together for golf, he said. Or Japanese. 14:27 GMT 23 May 2013 He said that of the three, only Mr. Orme, another Punahou hoops player, was in the gang that Mr. Obama described. Instead we are producing Richard Nixons." Obama devotes many words in his book to exploring his outsider status at Punahou. It was pretty typical from there out as far as what happens at prom: the dinner and the dancing and the photos.. Mr. Orme was unable to travel to Hawaii for the recent holiday, but the others called him twice. A spokeswoman for People said the reporter, West Coast correspondent Maureen Harrington, did not take the list. 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. Vanity Fair is coming soon. Here is how some of Obamas former teammates and coaches remember those years: To understand President Obama, you have to understand his Hawaiian roots, Maurer said. The motorcade arrived in Kapolei around 11:30 a.m. ___ 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. Mr. Obamas concern, Mr. Axelrod said, was for Mr. Titcomb, whose arrest was international news because he happened to be Barack Obamas friend.. The U.S. military was expanding on the island of Oahu, home to the new capital of Honolulu. College would be his next stop. So far, this process has not yielded anything especially damaging to Obamas candidacy. They were joined by two other teenagers - his best friend Greg Orme and date Kelli McCormack. He represented them in a very dignified, respectful way. The three men Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg. She wistfully showed a reporter the love note Obama wrote in June 1979. After a recent lunch with a reporter, he winked at a table of faculty-lounge colleagues and joked, This one is with Playgirl.. "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. Obama and his family have been in his native Hawaii since December 20 for the Christmas holiday. 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. Yet many say they have trouble reconciling their nearly 30-year-old memories with Obamas more recent descriptions of himself as a brooding and sometimes angry adolescent, grappling with his mixed race and the void left by a father who gave him his black skin but little else. Meanwhile, the search continues for Obamas closest high school friends -- the self-proclaimed Basketball Jones, who raced around the island in Darin Maurers two-toned beige VW van with the band Earth, Wind and Fire blaring from the cassette deck. 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. Hawaii is a remarkable place, he said. 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. 'You are extremely sweet and foxy, I don't know why Greg would want to spend any time with me at all!' We were all cracking up and everyone was smiling," she told the magazine. He remembers one day when young Obama, a hopelessly upbeat boy who seemed oblivious to the fact that the older kids didn't want him tagging along, followed a group of Adi's friends to a nearby swamp. 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. For much of their childhoods, Orme and Obama were more like brothers than buddies, constant companions both on and off the basketball court who even double-dated on senior prom night.