greg orme obama's friend
Obama, the son of a black father and white mother, stood out. Those are qualities a president should have. Obama Tees off on Oracle Founder's Private Course - Newsmax 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. Every time out hed come over and chat with me about my stroke, my health, he said. And when Obama came back for Christmas, he got invited to join the new president at a pickup basketball game. For most of their high school years, Orme and Obama lived and loved basketball, even if their hours of practice never translated into much playing time on game day. 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. Their photos are more likely to be stored on Facebook than in a shoe box. 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. 00:53 GMT 31 Dec 2014 One of those kids was Orme, a smart, respectful teenager from a white, middle-class family. Obamas prom pictures released. Mr. Obama and the others often would visit family members there at Christmas and on occasion the men would meet, but it was not until 2004 that they agreed to gather annually. Mr. Orme was unable to travel to Hawaii for the recent holiday, but the others called him twice. "I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams." Former playmates remember Obama as "Barry Soetoro," or simply "Barry," a chubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today. After years during which the friends grew apart, Mr. Obama reconnected with Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme a decade ago. TIME Exclusive: President Obamas 1979 Prom Photos. (At the request of the Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past articles, none of which matched what Obama recalled.) 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. 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. And a young, iconoclastic white woman who had defied the social mores of the day by marrying a dashing black man from Kenya was coping with the fact that her new husband essentially had abandoned her and their young child in 1963 to study at Harvard. 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 . Now that life story is being edited by others. ', 'I'd made my share of friends at school, gone on the occasional awkward date,' Obama wrote, 'And if I sometimes puzzled over the mysterious realignments of status that took place among my classmates, as some rose and others fell depending on the whims of their bodies or the make of their cars, I took comfort in the knowledge that my own position had steadily improved.'. The Presidency Can't Stop Obama's "Golf Tradition" - Townhall He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian in just six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric of Jakarta. A youth living in a distant land searches and finds new friends, a new language and a heartbreaking lesson about his identity in the pages of an American magazine. For the president to be able to be with a group where he can be absolutely relaxed a group that knows him from his youth on, and who he knows are friends with him not because of what he became, but because of who he is is a really comforting and warm thing, said David Axelrod, Mr. Obamas longtime strategist. "We live in a world of bullies and the U.S. has been bullied around. In the book, Obama discusses race and racism at his high school with one other Punahou student, "Ray,'' the young black man described in detail in "Dreams" as perpetually angry at the white world around him. "Not even close," he said, adding that Obama was dealing with "some inner turmoil" in those days. I cant tell if someone is Fijian or black.. But one word Obama learned quickly in his new home was curang, which means "cheater." We had to prove ourselves, focus on playing good ball. Once content to join their parents for outings to the aquarium or to get shave ice, Sasha and Malia are now more independent. I loved his game," he said. The fun may wear off, if history is any guide. I always knew he would do something, of course we never expected hed be in the White House, teammate and lifelong friend Greg Orme said. Obama has claimed on numerous occasions to have become fluent in Indonesian in six months. ___ 10:40 a.m. When a friend gave him shrimp paste instead of chocolate, he yelled, "Curang, curang!" A boy wants to find his place in a family where he is visibly different: chubby where others are thin, dark where others are light. Then and now, Punahou and Hawaii liked to see themselves as more diverse and colorblind than the rest of the nation. Of course, Obama embraced the image of the athlete, dribbling a ball to school and between classes. "Punahou was an amazing school," Smith said. Left: Kelli Allmans OAHUAN 1979 Yearbook. The Latest: Obama finishes playing golf with 3 friends | AP News 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. Who are President Obama's golf buddies? - The Desert Sun 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. She mixed encouragement to keep up his grades with laments about American politics. "The brothers," as Lewis Anthony Jr., an African-American in the class of 1977 put it, hung out together, often talking about issues involving race and civil rights. To them, the characteristics Obama displayed on the hardwood as one of the Sons of Oahu were evident in the way he handled the daunting responsibilities as leader of the free world. "He would protect the smaller ones." Greg Orme, a fellow varsity basketball player, was Obamas constant companion. He said he does recall long, soulful talks with the young Obama and that his friend confided his longing and loneliness. In December 2006, as Mr. Obama decided on his first presidential campaign, the friends talked about how the race would complicate their next getaway. He showed leadership and caring for his teammates, McLachlin said. Thats what we did to fit in, he said. Back in 1979 he was known as Barry and he had a beef with his basketball coach. Life without a father It was a complicated time. Hawaii had become a state only two years before Obama's birth, and there were plenty of native Hawaiians still deeply unhappy about it. So did Maurer, who is now a pastor in Houston. I think hes done great with all the stuff he inherited, like the recession and the two wars. Obama also made golf outings,. If someone is brown, they can be Samoan or Fijian or Tongan. "If this story is eight paragraphs, seven of them go to Greg. 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. Our second string should be playing more.'" He and I really clicked. The Los Angeles Times weighed in the other day. 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?" He made an appointment to see me one day and he brought along a couple other guys who wanted more playing time, Chris McLachlin recalled. The three men - Mike Ramos (right), Bobby Titcomb (not pictured) and Greg Orme (left) - are among the few people still in Obama's life who knew him long before he was famous. 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. He took out (Osama) Bin Laden. He sketched decidedly American cartoon characters during class. Some of the Betawi children threw rocks at the open Catholic classrooms, remembered Cecilia Sugini Hananto, who taught Obama in 2nd grade. Basketball was the great equalizer, he said. Topolinski, who now lives in Washington state, said he lost touch with Obama after high school and they moved into different political camps. It remains a refuge for me when I travel there during the winter, my family and I, and see friends from high school.. 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. From TIME's press release on the. Yearbook note Obama left for classmate Tom Topolinski when they graduated in 1979 from the Punahou school. Ramos is most often referred to in stories about his relations with the president as a businessman. Obama Hits Russia, the Gym and the Beach Thursday, Dec. 29 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. Her date was Greg Orme, Obama's best friend. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, TIME Exclusive: President Obamas 1979 Prom Photos. "But he wanted to remain at Punahou. They have a different level of affection for you than friends you meet later in life. 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. Whatever misgivings Obama had about Punahou, attending the school was largely his decision. By "I never picked up on that," Hagar said. Obama's highs school pals in Hawaii: Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme Others are more skeptical that the boy known as Barry felt the angst described by Barack. He didnt have to see me, but he was a man of his word, he said. We were all cracking up, and everyone was smiling, says Allman. Israella Pareira Darmawan, Obama's 1st-grade teacher, said she attempted to help him learn the Indonesian language by going over pronunciation and vowel sounds. (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. 'You really deserve better than clowns like us; you even laugh at my jokes! But after practice theyd hit the public courts. 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. 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. 14:27 GMT 23 May 2013 In his best-selling autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Obama describes having heated conversations about racism with another black student, "Ray." One of those friends, Neil Abercrombie, then a graduate student in the sociology department, frequently would see young Obama around town with his grandfather Stanley, whom Obama called "Gramps." Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the magazine. He knew that." Obama, too, was about to journey far from these familiar shores. 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. Marty Nesbitt, one of Obama's friends from . Barry was a very confident player who liked to drive to the basket. 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. I don't see that we are producing many Thomas Jeffersons nowadays. "There's no doubt that Keith's story is tragic and sad," Burton added. (D-Hawaii), a close friend of Obama . 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. Maybe we could have helped him. His love for Michelle and Sasha and Malia is outstanding. 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. You can see how he was much more sensitive than the other guys, even back then.. On prom night, the pair double-dated. And while they did enjoy marijuana, Mr. Ramos acknowledged, we played a lot more basketball than we smoked pot.. "Those were robust years full of energy and cacophony, and she loved all of it," Soetoro-Ng said of her grandmother, who has lived alone since her husband died in 1992. John F. Kennedy had his band of brothers from wartime. They compose notes to friends and family and include photos or quotes that best represent them. 18:47 GMT 23 May 2013. 'But the rest of it has sharp edges, 'Tho he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also that coolness - and I begin to have an inkling of some things about him that could get to me.'. "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. Just as he was the only African-American on the basketball team, he was also the only jock working on the schools literary magazine, Ka Wai Ola. By Barry Obama and his best friend's 'foxy' prom date - The Telegraph "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? 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. Or Hawaiian. 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. IE 11 is not supported. "It just wasn't a race thing," he reiterated again and again. Mr. Ramos was a year ahead of Mr. Obamas Punahou class of 79, but played with him on the basketball team. Hes not like that.. Memories of a racial awakening? 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. Madelyn Dunham, a rising executive at the Bank of Hawaii during Obama's Punahou days, was more reserved but seemed to love having her grandson's friends over to play and hang out. Aging photos show Obama and Orme decked out in 1970s fashion with their dates before attending a high school prom. He laughed and posed for photos with friends. But Kakugawa, a convicted drug felon, said Saturday that he had never been the "prototypical angry black guy" that Obama portrays. Others almost certainly illustrate how carefully the young man guarded the secret of his loneliness from even those who knew him best. In the spring of 1979, Obama's mother and Maya, Barack's younger half sister by almost nine years, flew to Hawaii for his high school graduation. Darin Maurer and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. Barack Obama, Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme - Bobby Titcomb Photos - Zimbio But the foursome rarely goes more than a few months without reconvening in one arrangement or another. Elite Dutch colonists once lived there; the Japanese moved in during their occupation of Indonesia in World War II. Aloha Obama: Inside the President's 2015 Hawaiian Holiday In April 2011, Mr. Titcomb was arrested on a charge of soliciting prostitution in a Honolulu sting operation, but the reunions with the president never stopped. Hawaii friends Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme, Punahou Academy classmates, were also on hand. The President of the United States is no different. The White House says Obama is playing golf with some of his longtime friends including Mike Ramos, Greg Orme and Bobby Titcomb. They sought out parties, especially at the military bases on the island, where African-Americans would be in attendance. He played on the beach. There are, however, chapters in Obamas high school narrative that are not subject to dispute. Most of his teachers and friends express sorrow that they did not know of Obamas racial anguish or inner demons. 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. Electricity had arrived only a couple of years earlier. Obama, however, was not a part of that group, according to Anthony and Smith. And he clearly didn't appreciate that," Orme said. "He had a pretty good shot and really handled the ball well.. He even scored a basket," he said. The term wasn't considered a slur at the time in Indonesia. But it was on the court in the off-season that Obama seemed to be even happier. But any struggles he was experiencing were obscured by the fact that he had a racially diverse group of friends--many of whom often would crowd into his grandparents' apartment, near Punahou, after school let out. Obama wrote in the lengthy yearbook note. The pretty blonde on the right was the future president's prom date. 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. Were the minorities here.. Choom Gang Reunites on Golf Course for Obama's Birthday Weekend - Breitbart Obama's Prom Photos Are Amazing - BroBible Obama's 1979 prom photo, yearbook note to 'foxy' friend unearthed Third-grade teacher Fermina Katarina Sinaga, now 67, has perhaps the most telling story. He added: "I can't say that I've avoided all, or any, of these hazards successfully." Hawaiian Vacation Reveals Importance of Family, Friends to Obama Allman also gaveTIME a snapshot of Obamas yearbook entry to her. "But it was only playing." "He didn't say what country he wanted to be president of. 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. 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. Secret Service stops man flying drone near president's motorcade We have this tradition to head home to Hawaii for Christmas. Though Orme spent most afternoons with Obama and considered him one of his closest friends, he said Obama never brought up issues of race, never talked about feeling out of place at Punahou. The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme - are among the few people still in Obama's life who knew him long before he was famous. 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'. The 1979 photo was snapped inside the home of former classmate, Kelli Allman, who was the prom date of the pr, Fashion alert! I hadnt seen him for 30 years.. He thanked "Tut and Gramps," his nicknames for Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, but didn't mention his faraway mother. Some of these discrepancies are typical of childhood memories -- fuzzy in specifics, warped by age, shaped by writerly license. Not many presidents retained friendships from as far back as high school, although George W. Bush had close friends from his prep school days at Andover. Or f------ Eskimo." Wed drive around in my van listening to Earth, Wind & Fire and looking for places to play, he said. 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. 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. A close friend and track teammate of Kakugawa, John Hagar, also said he was surprised by Obama's description of the character representing Kakugawa as an angry young black man. 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. They agreed to rendezvous in Hawaii every year for the holidays, and their reunions became regular even as Mr. Obama was busy climbing to senator and president, a path none of them imagined nearly four decades ago and 5,000 miles from Washington. Obama plays golf with Hawaii friends on Lanai owner's private course "They held his hands and feet and said, `One, two, three,' and threw him in the swamp," recalled Adi, who still lives in the same house where he grew up. Obama admits in "Dreams" that during high school he frequently smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, even used cocaine occasionally. Cook, who was 25, and Obama, then 22, dated for 18 months, passing their time discussing books and cooking. So neither of us ever started and that was hard, he said. The president was returning to the White House on Monday. Then, one day about a year after he had arrived, Obama was gone. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital. The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg. But it has revealed the vagaries of memory, as well as the ambivalent emotions stirred among old acquaintances when someone they once knew becomes famous. He would carry his books in one hand and his ball in the other," he said. She also sent advice about his future. The teacher, who still lives in Obama's old neighborhood, remembers that he always sat in the back corner of her classroom. Obama, he said, was especially adept at knowing how to build relationships. He said it puzzles him that, as president, Obama was often accused of failing to reach out to political opponents. Obama, his mother and new baby sister, Maya, moved into a small apartment near the school's sprawling, lush campus. 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. And on Tuesday, in what's become a yearly tradition, the men and their families gathered for a luau hosted by Titcomb. Vanity Fair is coming soon. It wasnt until 2008, when Obama was making his first run for president, that they saw each other again at a fundraiser. ", Ive known Barry since the fifth grade, he said. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and friend Greg Orme wait to warm 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. Obama and his family have . Now lots of people are interested in helping graduates of Punahou School jog their foggy memories, trolling for revelations about a young man who spent much of his time that season riding the bench. 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. 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. What America's Richest Ski Town's Handling of COVID-19 Shows. The motorcade arrived in Kapolei around 11:30 a.m. ___ In fact, the Life article and the photographs don't exist, say the magazine's own historians. 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. 'It was a really fun, happy time,' she said. The foursome, according to the Associated Press, teed off with another eight players. He attended a college basketball game with the first family the next day, and this week he and his wife hosted their annual barbecue for the other families, including those of the Obamas Chicago friends Eric Whitaker and Marty Nesbitt. He was a younger black man looking for guidance." Associated Press "I never knew, until reading the book later, how much that night had upset him." Greg Orme Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images 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 went to those parties up at Schofield but never saw him at any of them." This is the Barry I remember.. "His friends called him `Negro,' " Darmawan said. 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.
greg orme obama's friend