By DON NORTH NEW ORLEANS, La., March 6, 2017 — My father, his older sister, and their three younger brothers all left home in Clearwater, Fla., to serve the nation during World War II. In 1943 my father Donald C. North Jr. served on a U.S. Coast Guard cutter in the North Atlantic and in…
By ART SEAMAN KITTANNING, Penn., Feb. 13, 2017 — I used to fly airplanes and when I hear aviation stories I always am interested. The Sully Sullenberger story was amazing. Other stories are usually less daring. However… I moved to the western Pennsylvania town of Kittanning in 2002 to become pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church.…
By DON NORTH FORT WORTH, Texas, Nov. 7, 2015 – The author, a Vanderbilt University classmate and good friend of Chuck Offenburger, has spent most of his career as headmaster of private college-preparatory schools in North Carolina and Texas. He retired in 2013 from The Kinkaid School in Houston, but is spending this year as…
By PAUL BARLOON JACKSON JUNCTION, Iowa, Nov. 25, 2015 – Above is a turn-around on the headline of the “Iowa Boy” column in the Des Moines Register on Thanksgiving Day of 1980. Back then, my name was there in place of Chuck’s. You see, Mr. Offenburger had just embarked on what would become a 35-year…
By DOUGLAS T. BATES III NASHVILLE, Tenn., Oct. 28, 2015 — On the evening of Oct. 5, 1871, a group of young Americans of African descent gathered in Nashville with a Union Army veteran who had fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. They had come to a chapel to pray God’s blessing on a desperate gamble…