greg orme obama's friend greg orme obama's friend

Her date was Greg Orme, Obama's best friend. He laughed and posed for photos with friends. 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. Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the magazine. At the same time, several of his oft-recited stories may not have happened in the way he has recounted them. Only Mr. Titcomb stayed in Hawaii. remembered Ati Kisjanto, 45. "Not even close," he said, adding that Obama was dealing with "some inner turmoil" in those days. The teacher, who still lives in Obama's old neighborhood, remembers that he always sat in the back corner of her classroom. Vanity Fair is coming soon. On page 271 of the 1979 Oahuan, Obama's entry reflects the crossroads he found himself at as he prepared for life beyond Hawaii. I cant tell if someone is Fijian or black.. Daily Mail Reporter He took out (Osama) Bin Laden. Obama and his. Outside of their regular vacation activities, the First Couple (along with Vice President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden) released their holiday playlists. From left: Greg Orme, Kelli Allman, Barack Obama and Megan Hughes at Allmans parents house in Honolulu. Obama and his date Megan Hughes, a student at the Hawaii School for Girls at La Pietra, joined Orme at Allmans house, where the two couples sipped champagne before going to the dance and then an after-party. 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. 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. The same as in Washington, Orme said. I think hes done great with all the stuff he inherited, like the recession and the two wars. With a trimmed Afro, Hawaiian flower leis around his neck, Obama was surrounded by the disparate people who shaped him. "But looking back now I can see he was seeking more from those guys than that. 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'. The president was returning to the White House on Monday. Topolinski said neither he nor Obama were stars on their high school team. Obama has told the story--one of the watershed moments of his racial awareness--time and again, in remarkable detail. 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. Aging photos show Obama and Orme decked out in 1970s fashion with their dates before attending a high school prom. He struggled greatly with the foreign language, she said, and with his studies as a result. He was tenacious.. McLachlin said he survived a severe stroke shortly before Obama was elected president in 2008. 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. Allman said the two couples sipped Champagne before going to the dance, and then an after-party. In the early 1970s, diplomats and Indonesian businessmen lived there in fancy gated houses with wide paved roads and sculpted bushes. And when Obama came back for Christmas, he got invited to join the new president at a pickup basketball game. Basketball was the great equalizer, he said. 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. "You need to find Greg Orme," instructed Obama's old basketball coach, Chris McLachin. Furushima said that many of her classmates have expressed dismay at Obamas rendering of the past. 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. If only I had saved that Nerf hoop we used to dunk on. Maybe we could have helped him. 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 one word Obama learned quickly in his new home was curang, which means "cheater." '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.'. (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. 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. If you look at our teams, that year I was the only white guy on the starting five. Mr. Titcomb was golfing with the president within hours of the Obamas Dec. 21 arrival on Oahu. In a May 21, 2008 Sports Illustrated interview, Obama spoke of the importance of basketball in his life. And once you started playing well, contributing on the court, pretty much the racial aspect goes away.. 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.'. Then his young mother, now divorced, met and married an Indonesian student studying at the University of Hawaii. It can be very racially hostile, especially if youre white or black. 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. Like Mr. Obama, he was of mixed parentage the son of a Filipino father and a Czech mother and his parents were divorced. As he had at the old school, Obama sat in a back corner. His love for Michelle and Sasha and Malia is outstanding. 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. In his day, he was a better basketball player than a golfer. In an essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up, Obama "wrote he wanted to be president," Sinaga recalled. "It's their world, all right," Ray supposedly shouts at Obama. 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. "It just wasn't a race thing," he reiterated again and again. But he seemed to have coped pretty well.. When it rained, Obama and his pals went bowling, instead. "They were like brothers," says Allman. But the reality of Obama's narrative is not that simple. "He was very intelligent and witty. "But it wasn't a race thing," he said. 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. WASHINGTON President Obama has called Hawaii his refuge, and so it has been throughout his political life. You had three part-Hawaiians, one Filipino and me., But Hale said he is still enjoying the novelty of a famous classmate. 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. The night, Obama later wrote, made him furious as he realized that whites held a "fundamental power" over blacks. Obama admits in "Dreams" that during high school he frequently smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, even used cocaine occasionally. "I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams." But asked what he believes Obamas biggest accomplishment was, he had a ready answer. Hawaii friends Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme, Punahou Academy classmates, were also on hand. Its good for me, pre-Alzheimers, to try and remember this stuff, he said, struggling to recall something other than Obamas love for basketball and his improbable hook shot. So did Maurer, who is now a pastor in Houston. He was a younger black man looking for guidance." Wed drive around in my van listening to Earth, Wind & Fire and looking for places to play, he said. "They own it and we in it. In a striking snapshot with his grandparents, Stanley smiles proudly while Madelyn hugs him fiercely, as though she doesn't want to let him go forth into a world far from the remote island that for so long had been his home. In 2011, he pleaded no contest to soliciting a prostitute, but Obama has stayed fiercely loyal to his childhood friend. 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. Daily Mail Reporter, Images show Obama ahead of his prom night in Honolulu in 1979, The Obamas to return to Martha's Vineyard? Obama, his mother and new baby sister, Maya, moved into a small apartment near the school's sprawling, lush campus. 'We had great vibes between us.'. Obamas family is already insulating itself. We played a lot of playground ball.. "But it was only playing." Obama Hits Russia, the Gym and the Beach Thursday, Dec. 29 And from the first day of 5th grade right up until his graduation in 1979, the young man was one of only a small number of black students at a school heavily populated by the children of Hawaii's wealthy, most of them white and Asian. (At the request of the Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past articles, none of which matched what Obama recalled.) "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. You are extremely sweet and foxy, he wrote. Instead, the chemicals had peeled off much of his skin, leaving him sad and scarred, Obama recalled. Topolinski laughed when he recalled how they both tried out for the schools football team. 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. 00:53 GMT 31 Dec 2014 Obama, too, was about to journey far from these familiar shores. She wistfully showed a reporter the love note Obama wrote in June 1979. I think if people were one-on-one with him, theyd see things his way Look at how hes treated President-elect Trump. Mr. Obamas concern, Mr. Axelrod said, was for Mr. Titcomb, whose arrest was international news because he happened to be Barack Obamas friend.. I loved his game," he said. Thats what we did to fit in, he said. Bailey, who coached Obama during his junior year and now runs an ambulance service, said young Barry was a "gym rat. Isnt that sweet? she asked. One of the neatest things is that he has promoted family, he said. Now they mainly just golf more than 30 hours in six outings this vacation and trash-talk, just like in the old days. The photos appear in the new issue of TIME, which hits news stands Friday. 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. The first family has attended Titcomb's annual luaus in the past. Right: Obama wrote the above note in Allmans yearbook at the end of his senior year in 1979. The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg. It was pretty typical from there out as far as what happens at prom: the dinner and the dancing and the photos.. 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. He then wrote down his number, encouraging Allman to give him a call, and signed off 'Barry Obama'. By We get together for golf, he said. 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'. 'Many people call Obama aloof, and he hasn't made a lot of friends in Washington,' Brinkley said. Obamas prom pictures released. He posed in lifeguard stands. I don't know why Greg would want to spend anytime with me at all! Obama and his Punahou School classmates Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme enjoyed a sunny and breezy day on the links. (Photo by Joaquin Siopack-Pool/Getty Images) It remains a refuge for me when I travel there during the winter, my family and I, and see friends from high school.. He has ethnic Chinese mother and his father was Polish. I don't see that we are producing many Thomas Jeffersons nowadays. The three men Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg. Obama is playing golf with three of his friends, Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme. 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. Obama spent the weekend in California after meeting Friday at a resort with Jordan's king. He was loving and generous." Magazines, Digital He always made time to see his old coach I didnt play him as much as I should have and he had every right to say 'Ill show you coach.' Likewise for Mr. Obama, it seems. He would have started on any other high school team on the state," McLachlin said of Obama. On prom night, the pair double-dated. By Instead we are producing Richard Nixons." Obama has claimed on numerous occasions to have become fluent in Indonesian in six months. 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. 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. For the past two weeks, he has been recharging on Oahu after an unpleasant year in the job. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. 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. For Orme, the Obama he saw on the court was a lot like the Obama who occupied the White House a team player who liked to win. And having a Hawaiian in the White House made them all proud. The reality was less tidy. Coaches have recalled how he never went anywhere without a ball. I really admire that.. Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. 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. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Some, like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, counted later acquaintances among political donors as friends. 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. 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. He knew that." 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. Im a Republican, but Ill endorse Barry for anything he wants, said Tom Topolinski, who backed his old buddy twice and voted this time for Trump. 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. There are, however, chapters in Obamas high school narrative that are not subject to dispute. 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. I am not giving any interviews, Obamas grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, curtly interjected when a reporter phoned. "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. The motorcade arrived in Kapolei around 11:30 a.m. ___ Marty Nesbitt, one of Obama's friends from . "He'd go right up to the coach during a game and say, `Coach, we're killing this team. "It was a really fun, happy time. "He challenged the coaches.. Allman said Obama didn't date a lot in high school but had plenty of charm. A close friend of Obama's from their teenage years, Greg Orme, spent so much time with Dunham that he, too, called him "Gramps." So far, it has been a narrative spun almost entirely on Obamas terms and in his own words -- most prominently in his bestselling memoir, Dreams From My Father.. And they have cheered Obama on even when they disagreed with him. Darin Maurer and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. Obama devotes many words in his book to exploring his outsider status at Punahou. So neither of us ever started and that was hard, he said. I hope we can keep in touch this summer, even though Greg will be gone.'. So just get the f--- outta my face." 'The sexual warmth is definitely there,' Cook wrote in her journal. "His friends called him `Negro,' " Darmawan said. 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. 'When you're president, everybody wants something from you and only these types of friends are able to simply want your well-being. Some seem to make Obama look better in the retelling, others appear to exaggerate his outward struggles over issues of race, or simply skim over some of the most painful, private moments of his life. 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. Among his supporters, his likability and credibility have only been boosted by his stories of being an outsider trying to fight his way in. As a result, the handful of black students at Punahou informally banded together. "But he wanted to remain at Punahou. He was the only foreign child in the neighborhood. The handful of black students who attended Punahou School in Hawaii, for instance, say they struggled mightily with issues of race and racism there. But such solitude has become less and less attainable for presidents in modern times. The Obamas did skip Hawaii in 2007 and instead the friends joined Mr. Obama in wintry Iowa for the January 2008 presidential caucuses. The idea that his biggest struggle was race is [bull]." Oblivious to all of this was a perpetually smiling toddler the entire family called Barry. Another story put forth in "Dreams" as one of Obama's pivotal moments of racial awakening checks out essentially as he wrote it. , updated Our second string should be playing more.'" I know that was hard for him.". Im incredibly proud of my friend. She became estranged from her husband, Barack Obama Sr., after his departure for Harvard and rarely saw the group of friends that they had made at the University of Hawaii. He knew the really small apartment that Mr. Obama lived in with his grandparents and what a talker Gramps was. "Punahou was an amazing school," Smith said. But Kakugawa, a convicted drug felon, said Saturday that he had never been the "prototypical angry black guy" that Obama portrays. Thats when we see each other. Ramos is most often referred to in stories about his relations with the president as a businessman. As it made its way over the mountain pass, he took in views of the lush, green and misty Koolau mountains. "Barry's biggest struggles then were missing his parents. They sought out parties, especially at the military bases on the island, where African-Americans would be in attendance. Associated Press Their Jakarta neighborhood resembled a village more than the bustling metropolis the city is today. Then and now, Punahou and Hawaii liked to see themselves as more diverse and colorblind than the rest of the nation. Obama and his family have . Hed tell us to move on if we got into it with another player. I am in poor health.. 'It was a really fun, happy time,' she said. Because hes a pastor, Maurer said he prefers not to weigh-in on politics. Former playmates remember Obama as "Barry Soetoro," or simply "Barry," a chubby little boy very different from the gangly Obama people know today. Right around then, we really started getting into basketball., Obama was all business when it came to "the game. ---------- Kirsten Scharnberg reported from Honolulu and Kim Barker from Jakarta, Indonesia; Tribune staff reporter Ray Gibson contributed to this report. I dont know why people have slammed him like that, said Maurer. On prom night, the pair double-dated. 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. "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.. "In the absence of his father, there was not a kinder, more understanding man than Stanley Dunham. John F. Kennedy had his band of brothers from wartime. He didnt have to see me, but he was a man of his word, he 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. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. But Furushima, too, is learning to be on guard around the press. Not as well known is the fact that the many people who raised him were nearly as diverse as the places where he grew up. Barry would be the only black person. Barry spent his days at the Punahou School in Hawaii studying, shooting hoops and goofing off with his friends. But he took the high road and showed a lot of integrity. "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. Many of the men were black. 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. Obama never became terribly close with the children of the new school--this time a predominantly Muslim one--where he was enrolled. "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? 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. President Obama may have had a tough couple of weeks, but newly-released images will remind him of his more carefree days. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy. The pretty blonde on the right was the future president's prom date. She also shared a complimentary note that Obama had written in her high school yearbook. 'You are extremely sweet and foxy, I don't know why Greg would want to spend any time with me at all!' He is 9 years old, living in Indonesia, where he and his mother moved with her new husband, Lolo Soetoro, a few years earlier. "And we were told he had already moved away." But generally, said the presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, It does seem like these presidents need to find a sanctuary whether its a place or a group of people where they can just be themselves and feel the connection from the present to the past. High school friends who predate adulthood and professional attainments often know each others siblings, parents, even grandparents and know each other in a way that later friends often cannot. Of course, Obama embraced the image of the athlete, dribbling a ball to school and between classes. He was a good player inside and out, Orme recalled. "I never picked up on that," Hagar said. Teachers, former playmates and friends recall a boy who never fully grasped their language and who was very quiet as a result. We have this tradition to head home to Hawaii for Christmas. 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. 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. Obama's motorcade left his Kailua vacation rental home at 10:48 a.m. under partly cloudy skies. The fourth person in the picture is Obama's date,Megan Hughes. Hawaii had become a state only two years before Obama's birth, and there were plenty of native Hawaiians still deeply unhappy about it. 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. Genevieve Cook, an elementary school teacher, and Obama met at a Christmas party in the East Village in 1983. He was probably studying them and learning from them. If this story is eight paragraphs, seven of them go to Greg. ', 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. Hopefully now that hes done well get to see each other more, he said. We had great vibes between us, she told TIME. (Courtesy Maya Soetoro-Ng ), The life stories, when the presidential candidate tells them, have a common theme: the quest to belong. . Dan Hale, the 6-foot-7-inch star center of the 1979 Punahou basketball team, said Obamas depiction of Hawaii as a place where race really mattered hardly resonates with him. He even scored a basket," he said. And he clearly didn't appreciate that," Orme said. One of those kids was Orme, a smart, respectful teenager from a white, middle-class family. Throughout his youth, as depicted in his first book, he always found ways to meld into even the most uninviting of communities. 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. I brood, Mr. Obamas friend Mr. Ramos said a few years ago. The number at Dunhams apartment in a nondescript Honolulu high rise has not changed in more than a quarter-century. The 1979 photo was snapped inside the home of former classmate, Kelli Allman, who was the prom date of the president's close high schoolfriend, Greg Orme. 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. They have a different level of affection for you than friends you meet later in life. IE 11 is not supported. best crew for uss franklin star trek fleet command, accident in burlington, nj today, elder debra brown morton,

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