Entertainment
Pilots Speak at Performing Stars’ ‘Red Tails’ Showing
Nine pilots and two animators spoke at the Feb. 17 Performing Stars’ “Red Tails” showing at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco.
They shared how aviation became a positive career choice for them to about 100 youths attending the event. They were also examples of how aviation can become a viable career choice for Black people and women of color.
Marin County resident Jordan Calhoun flew his first solo in an airplane at 16-years-old. He later graduated from University of Southern California with a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Marketing, and now works as an assistant vice president in marketing for Jackson Square Aviation, which leases commercial aircrafts.
Courtland Savage, a North Carolina native, currently flies for United Express. Savage served for the Air Force Reserves as a crew chief on the Boeing C-17 Globe Master III., while attending Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. Savage founded Fly for the Culture, a non-profit organization that helps increase diversity within the aviation industry, and exposes disadvantaged and minority youth to aviation as a career option.
Colin Henry grew up in Mill Valley, graduated from the College of Marin, and currently flies a Gulfstream G650 jet for Nike. He is a flight instructor and air tour pilot, and a member of the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals.
Mikosha Phoenix is an air traffic controller in Bismarck, N.D., and the public affairs chairperson of the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees. Phoenix was born and raised outside of Houston, TX and graduated from the University of Texas at Tyler with a degree in Journalism.
Tarah Ernest, first officer and Pilot Talent Acquisitions personnel for Republic Airways, is responsible for the safe operation of Republic’s aircrafts. Ernest, as a Haitian-American female pilot, understands the obstacles that confront minorities pursuing careers in aviation. She mentors those aspiring to be pilots and is involved with the Sisters of the Skies and Women in Aviation.
Capt. Tara Wright, from Oakland, is the first female African American pilot for U.S. Airways, and in 2017, became a captain for Alaska Airlines. She also owns and operates an air charter company. Wright says that aviation is a viable career option for women of color, and said “It is important to demonstrate that there are people like me who do this job.”
Lt. Col. Jason Harris, who grew up in East Oakland, has lead an accomplished military career and became a decorated Air Force pilot, and a motivational speaker, consultant and certified character coach who values dedication, service and excellence. Harris also recognizes the value of empowerment and an environment of trust where talented people can grow and flourish.
Capt. Ray Burkett of American Airlines studied Aeronautical Science at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University. Burkett grew up in Detroit, MI, and had no mentors, but still loves his choice of becoming a pilot.
Col. Yvonne Darlene Cagle, from Novato, received her doctor of medicine degree from the University of Washington in 1985, and retired from the United States Air Force in 2008. She is a member of NASA’s Astronaut Class of 1996, and currently works as a consultant for space telemedicine at the Johnson Space Center, studying the health of astronauts.
Cagle never flew on a space mission, and in 2018 was considered a “NASA Management Astronaut” in the Ames Research Center in California, which means that she is employed at NASA but is no longer eligible for spaceflight assignments.
Writer Greg Burnham, and artist Marcus Williams are the co-creators of the “Tuskegee Heirs,” a comic series about five young pilots living in a futuristic world where humans are banned from becoming pilots. They become trained to defeat the self-aware war machines fixated to destroy civilization and are “thrust into the middle of a war for humanities’ right to exist.”
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Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024
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Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024
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Entertainment
O.J. Simpson, 76, Dies of Prostate Cancer
Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, who rose to fame as a college football player who went on to the NFL and parlayed his talents in acting and sportscasting, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 10, his family announced.
By Post Staff
Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, who rose to fame as a college football player who went on to the NFL and parlayed his talents in acting and sportscasting, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 10, his family announced.
Born and raised in San Francisco, the Galileo High School graduate was recruited by the University of Southern California after he was on a winning Junior College All-American team.
At USC, he gained wide acclaim as a running back leading to him becoming the No. 1 pick in the AFL-NFL draft in 1969 and joining the Buffalo Bills, where he had demanded – and received — the largest contract in professional sports history: $650,000 over five years. In 1978, the Bills traded Simpson to his hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, retiring from the game in 1979.
Simpson’s acting career had begun before his pro football career with small parts in 1960s TV (“Dragnet”) before “Roots” and film (“The Klansman,” “The Towering Inferno,” Capricorn One”).
He was also a commentator for “Monday Night Football,” and “The NFL on NBC,” and in the mid-1970s Simpson’s good looks and amiability made him, according to People magazine, “the first b\Black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar.”
The Hertz rent-a-car commercials raised his recognition factor while raising Hertz’s profit by than 50%, making him critical to the company’s bottom line.
It could be said that even more than his success as a football star, the commercials of his running through airports endeared him to the Black community at a time when it was still unusual for a Black person to represent a national, mainstream company.
He remained on Hertz team into the 1990s while also getting income endorsing Pioneer Chicken, Honey Baked Ham and Calistoga water company products and running O.J. Simpson Enterprises, which owned hotels and restaurants.
He married childhood sweetheart Marguerite Whitley when he was 19 and became the father of three children. Before he divorced in 1979, he met waitress and beauty queen Nicole Brown, who he would marry in 1985. A stormy relationship before, during and after their marriage ended, it would lead to a highway car chase as police sought to arrest Simpson for the murder by stabbing of Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.
The pursuit, arrest, and trial of Simpson were among the most widely publicized events in American history, Wikipedia reported.
Characterized as the “Trial of the Century,” he was acquitted by a jury in 1995 but found liable in the amount of $33 million in a civil action filed by the victims’ families three years later.
Simpson would be ensnared in the criminal justice system 12 years later when he was arrested after forcing his way into a Las Vegas hotel room to recover sports memorabilia he believed belonged to him.
In 2008, he received a sentence of 33 years and was paroled nine years later in 2017.
When his death was announced, Simpson’s accomplishments and downfalls were acknowledged.
Sports analyst Christine Brennan said: “… Even if you didn’t love football, you knew O.J. because of his ability to transcend sports and of course become the businessman and the pitchman that he was.
“And then the trial, and the civil trial, the civil case he lost, and the fall from grace that was extraordinary and well-deserved, absolutely self-induced, and a man that would never be seen the same again,” she added.
“OJ Simpson played an important role in exposing the racial divisions in America,” attorney Alan Dershowitz, an adviser on Simpson’s legal “dream team” told the Associated Press by telephone. “His trial also exposed police corruption among some officials in the Los Angeles Police Department. He will leave a mixed legacy. Great athlete. Many people think he was guilty. Some think he was innocent.”
“Cookie and I are praying for O.J. Simpson’s children … and his grandchildren following his passing. I know this is a difficult time,” Magic Johnson said on X.
“I feel that the system failed Nicole Brown Simpson and failed battered women everywhere,” attorney Gloria Allred, who once represented Nicole’s family, told ABC News. “I don’t mourn for O.J. Simpson. I do mourn for Nicole Brown Simpson and her family, and they should be remembered.”
Simpson was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year ago and was undergoing chemotherapy treatment, according to Pro Football Hall of Fame President Jim Porter. He died in his Las Vegas, Nevada, home with his family at his side.
He is survived by four children: Arnelle and Jason from his first marriage and Sydney and Justin from his second marriage. He was predeceased son, Aaren, who drowned in a family swimming pool in 1979.
Sources for this report include Wikipedia, ABC News, Associated Press, and X.
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