Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [33]
When Oprah introduced the former student body president as a computer science teacher, she said, “I thought you’d be president of a company or something.” When he related his story about getting “the wooden paddle” his senior year for having left the grounds during school hours, she was astounded. “How could you be paddled? You were the student body president.”
“Rules are rules, Oprah,” he said. “For everyone.”
Before taping the show he had seen her in the hall surrounded by her coterie of hairstylists, makeup men, and producers. “I gave her a big hug and said, ‘Hon, why are you doing all of this?’ She said, ‘Because I want to bring the truth to the world.’ ” He handed her his 1971 yearbook, which she had first signed when they were seniors. Next to that entry, which said, in part, “I want you to know that in a very special way—I love you,” she now wrote: “Gary—22 years later God is still King! Thank you for what you’ve done and continue to do to live well! Oprah.” He didn’t know what she meant. “Possibly, it’s just a safe statement that she or her staff has coined for the general public.”
During one segment of that show, Oprah introduced a man who had written a book about the difficulty of fulfilling high-school achievements. He said, “To be a high-school hero is the biggest thing in life. It’s hard to equal that kind of esteem later on.”
Aside from a cardiac surgeon, Andre Churchwell, who graduated from East in 1971, Oprah seemed to be the only one sitting onstage who had exceeded the promise of high-school potential. At the end of the show, she asked her classmates how they looked back on their high-school years. Each responded with warmth and sentiment, saying those years were a valuable proving ground, and a time when they felt they had been a family.
Oprah looked amused. Standing in her own spotlight, finally thin and glamorous at the age of forty, she was anything but nostalgic. “Boy, I didn’t feel it was a family,” she said. “I felt like it was just a phase. I moved on.”
I LOVED THE girl that Oprah was back then,” said Luvenia Harrison Butler. “She was Ope or Opie, and I was Luv or Veenie.… We met in high school and were close until she left town. We used to crack each other up doing Geraldine.” Luvenia laughed as she recalled the comedian Flip Wilson’s cross-dressing impersonation of a sassy female he called Geraldine. Each week on his variety show he sashayed across the stage in a tight Pucci dress, high heels, and a long black wig as a babe brassy enough to scare a bear. From 1970 to 1974, Geraldine was adored by television audiences, black and white.
“Oprah and I imitated Geraldine all the time,” Luvenia said as she paged through her 1971 high-school yearbook thirty-seven years after graduation. She smiled at what Oprah had written:
Hey, Luv—You are one of the nicest nuts I’ve ever known. Your friendship means and has meant so much to me. I’ll always remember … “A pea’s a pea, a bean’s a bean, who you think you playin’ with—Geraldine!” You’ll go a long way and be ultra successful. Good luck! Remember me.
Over lunch in 2008, Luvenia shook her head with amusement. “Remember her? Lord in Heaven, who can forget her? She’s announcing herself to the world every time you turn around.”
The effects of the Sears Roebuck Charm School that Oprah attended in Milwaukee show in her yearbook pictures. Sitting with the honor society, she is the only girl who crossed her arms in an X on her lap, the perfect way to deflect camera focus from the stomach. Standing with the student body president, she tilted her head up, another charm-school trick to elongate a double chin. With the National Forensic League, she stood in the classic model pose, one foot in front of the other.
“Look at her head shot,” said Luvenia, pointing to the picture of Oprah in