Congrats, grads! Our community celebrates the youth graduating with the Class of 2014.
Special Section
St. LouiS AmericAn The
CAC Audited JUNE 19 – 25, 2014
Vol. 85 No. 11 COMPLIMENTARY
stlamerican.com
Farewell to ‘Fatha’ Thimes Local radio legend passes at 85; services Tuesday at New Sunny Mount
Lou ‘Fatha’ Thimes with his daughter Denise Thimes.
By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American “He would say, ‘Fatha, Fatha … serving my children – with the music,’ and that’s what he did,” Denise Thimes said. “There was a time when we couldn’t get the information unless it was through black radio or the black paper, and my father was a part of that.” St. Louis lost one of its last living patriarchs of black radio on Wednesday, June 11 when Lou “Fatha” Thimes passed away at the age of 85.
“There weren’t that many before him,” said Bernie Hayes, longtime radio personality and American columnist. “You had Spider Burkes. You had Wiley Price II. You had E. Rodney Jones – who came around the same time as Lou. He, George Logan and Gabriel were the ones that set the trend for black radio in St. Louis as we know it.” Born and raised in St. Louis, Fatha Thimes began his career in radio in Okinawa, Japan in 1952 while stationed there with the U.S. Army.
See THIMES, A7
State limits Normandy transfers Board appoints three members to new district governing panel By Dale Singer Of St. Louis Public Radio
Photo by UPI/Bill Greenblatt
Beating cancer A breast cancer survivor dances and celebrates with boxing gloves on before the start of the annual Koman Race for the Cure in St. Louis on Saturday, June 14.
Metro’s best Valedictorian Jordan Banks pursues sustainable future via chemical engineering By Nell Whittaker For The St. Louis American The past and the future meet in Jordan Banks, valedictorian of Metro Academic and Classical High School’s 2014 graduating class. The route that she has chosen to follow demands that she looks to the future. She wants to see our impact on the natural world dramatically reduced, so she plans to
work in sustainability. This year, she is headed to the University of Illinois to study chemical engineering. However, she draws on the past to influence her decisions. Her favorite high school class was History of the Americas. “Our understanding of the past informs the decisions we make in the future,” she said. And in her spare time, she handwrites letters to her friends See BANKS, A6
Metro High’s 2014 valedictorian Jordan Banks
JEFFERSON CITY – More than 130 students whose families moved into the Normandy school district last summer to take advantage of the school transfer program will be shut out of the program this coming school year under a policy adopted by the state board of education Monday. With two weeks to go before the current Normandy district is replaced by the staten “We didn’t controlled Normandy want to saddle Schools Collaborative, the board with the state board voted a financial on a range of questions, from who will be on the situation that board that runs would not allow appointed Normandy to how many it to perform days students will attend educationally.” class to who will be in charge of the district’s – Mike Jones daily operations. But the biggest change, approved by a vote of 4-2 after lengthy discussion, would make the transfers available only to students who attended Normandy schools for at least one semester in the 2012-13 school year, the year that ended right before the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously upheld the transfer law last June. The decision to limit the transfers to students who had previously attended Normandy schools was primarily a financial one. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education presented the state board with a range of options, along with the monetary result of each one. The option that won approval projects 769 students transferring from Normandy to accredited districts, with their transportation to Francis Howell paid as it was last year. See NORMANDY, A6