Hall of Faulk looms as NFL suits up Yes, there will be an NFL season. Now we can focus on Marshall Faulk’s induction into the Hall of Fame in August.
Page B3
Vol. 83 No. 15
CAC Audited JULY 14 – 20, 2011
COMPLIMENTARY
stlamerican.com
Flying to Jupiter
Splash in the city
JARVIS BROWN IS OFF TO THE AIR FORCE ACADEMY – AND THEN SPACE By Rebecca S. Rivas Of The St. Louis American
Photo by Wiley Price
Jakyara Little, age 5, cooled off Tuesday afternoon in a wading pool at City Garden, St. Louis’ nationally recognized sculpture garden downtown. Temperatures topped 100 degrees in the region this week.
STL must dream big Investing in airport expansion could transform St. Louis By Ripley Rasmus For The St. Louis American Picture this future St. Louis: a couple enjoys coffee at a café overlooking the refurbished Jefferson Expansion Memorial grounds, newly connected to downtown. The couple then bicycles to a new downtown destination, a high-speed rail station, to make a two-hour jaunt to Chicago to visit relatives. Meanwhile, a bustling Lambert-St. Louis
International Airport, now ringed with manufacturers and distributors of a variety of goods, is the backdrop for a legion of a workers busily readying cargo planes inbound and outbound from Asia and South America – graphically portraying the newfound global reach of the Gateway to the West. This isn’t a pipe dream. And yet, there is a hesitation in some quarters of Mound City that this
The St. Louis region is in global competition for talent, commerce, tourism and investment. Competing is not a pipe dream, but a necessity.
See AIRPORT, A7
SOUL SINGER
Soul singer Terisa Griffin, founder of the Better Love Yourself Foundation, performed at Vintage Vinyl in University City when visiting St. Louis in 2007.
SHOWS LOVE TO COLLEGE STUDENTS Terisa Griffin tells kids to love themselves – and makes sure they’ve packed a towel By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American
“I fell in love with St. Louis – the food and the people.”
“My father was a minister, and the women in my church put together a trunk with all of these items that I wouldn’t have had sense enough to fill it with,” said Chicago-based R&B/soul singer Terisa Griffin. “It let me know that somebody loved me and reminded me to love myself. And I’m hoping that that’s what we are letting the kids know with these events.” Griffin stopped in St. Louis for a
– Chicago-based R&B singer Terisa Griffin
simple, small-scale promotional tour in St. Louis four years ago to create buzz for her debut CD My Naked Soul. She has since maintained a spe-
On Tuesday morning, Jarvis Brown said goodbye to his father at the St. Louis airport and set off to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado for five years. There were more tears than words exchanged between him and his father, said Brown, student body president at Gateway Institute of Technology High School last year. Being in Colorado for just two hours, Brown said in a phone interview with The St. Louis American, “I’m a little nervous, but I’m really excited to do it.” Besides leading the student body at Gateway, Brown was also captain of the cross country track team, cadet colonel in the Air Force Junior ROTC program and vice commander of the drill team. However, when Brown arrived at Gateway, he was a completely different kid. “Freshman year was nothing,” he said. “I didn’t grow up until my sophomore year. I was the smallest in size and “He said, height. I lacked friends. It was a tough year.” ‘You could The only school join the drill activity he was involved team and in freshman year was track – you ROTC, and it wasn’t by choice. are skinny, “I didn’t want to be you can there,” he said. “I had run,’” he long braids, and I had to said. “He cut them up. I was frustrated the whole year.” pushed His grandmother, a me into retired security guard at everything.” Gateway, saw how the program changed stu– Jarvis dents. She told Brown Brown that it was going to help him out. That’s the only reason he stuck with it, he said. He had no friends in the ROTC program, he said. Most of the students from his middle school went to Soldan High School. “None of my friends went to the same high school as me,” he said. Thankfully, Chief Thomas Williams, the program’s head instructor, told him he had potential. “He said, ‘You could join the drill team and track – you are skinny, you can run,’” he said. “He pushed me into everything.” Once he joined activities, he made friends. And things started to fall into place. At the end of his junior year, he decided to enter the race for student council president, even though the race was well underway. “I decided to run because I didn’t think the candidates running were good enough to run the school,” he said. Brown said that he could either complain about it, or he could challenge himself to offer the school something better. See BROWN, A7
See GRIFFIN, A6 Photo by Wiley Price