Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [32]
The judges asked the contestants what they wanted to do with their lives. Oprah said, “I believe in truth and I want to perpetuate truth. So I want to be a journalist like Barbara Walters.”
Next they asked what the contestants would do if given a million dollars. Most said they would give it to charity, help the poor, or buy their parents a new house. Not Oprah.
“Lord, you just watch me,” she said, lifting her eyes to Heaven. “If I had a million dollars, I would be a spendin’ fool. I’m not quite sure what I would spend it on, but I would spend, spend, spend. Just be a spendin’ fool.”
“Everybody laughed,” said Nancy Solinski, “and I was pleased, although frankly surprised, that she won. I put the crown on her head, so grateful that the judges had gotten over their own prejudices. It was time.”
John Heidelberg had accompanied Oprah to the event. “The crowd was just overwhelmed with her, and you could see that she was just loving every minute of it.” He remembered how thrilled she was to have newspaper photographers rushing to take her picture. “ ‘Here I am,’ she’d yell. Oprah loved the camera. ‘Where’s the camera? Here I am. Come see me.’ She loved the limelight.” He laughed as he recalled her reactions. “[She thought,] ‘This is great. Hey, I love this! This is going places!’ ”
A few weeks after riding atop a parade float as Miss Fire Prevention, Oprah walked with the class of 1971 to receive her diploma and graduate. Fifteen years later, East Nashville High School graduated its last class and became East Literature Magnet School. Even with the school doors closed, many from the class wanted to stay connected, but Oprah never looked back.
“Not even to contribute a brick,” said Larry Carpenter at the East Alumni House as he walked up the path paved with legacy bricks carrying the names of former students and the years in which they graduated. The bricks, which cost fifty dollars, finance scholarships for poor children in Nashville. As of 2008, there was no brick in the name of the school’s most famous graduate. “I have written to Oprah many times in hopes that she might want to contribute to our scholarship fund, but I’ve never received a reply.”
The president of the East Nashville High Alumni Association, Patsy Rainey Cline, also tried to solicit Oprah’s support for the school’s scholarship program, but to no avail. “She has not shown any interest in any activity of the school since she left Nashville.… She seems so interested in underprivileged children and different nationalities of black children, and that situation certainly is prevalent at East High, but …”
Considering the millions of dollars Oprah would later give to charity, Larry Carpenter and Patsy Rainey Cline cannot be faulted for thinking her exclusion of East High is deliberate. Luvenia Harrison Butler felt Oprah ignored her high school in Nashville because of painful memories. “It’s all part of her secretive past,” she said.
Yet when the class of ’71 decided to have a reunion in 1994, they again contacted Oprah, and this time she responded by saying that she’d like to have the reunion on her television show. “We spent weeks getting all the names and addresses of everyone for her producers,” Luvenia said. “It was a lot of work, but we thought it was a great way to bring everyone together. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite happen that way.”
The promised reunion for the class resulted in a show more focused on the