"
...
We had a student teacher at that time, and it was her idea for everyone to pick someone to partner with and to have a picture taken," Inoue said.
He and "Barry" picked each other and posed for the photograph in their classroom at Noelani School in Honolulu.
Student artwork in the background shows it was taken around Christmastime. Inoue doesn't remember many of the circumstances, but he remembers them lining up for the photos that he believes were displayed on a classroom wall for the duration of the school year.
His classmate, Barry Obama, didn't last that long. His family moved to Indonesia sometime during the school year.
"I don't remember too much about him," Inoue said. "I just remember he was big. After he left, I always remembered this picture. I always would wonder whatever happened to him. I always assumed he moved to the States.
"When I was in high school, when I was a junior or senior, I remember I was listening to a high school basketball game on the radio and I heard the name Barry Obama, and I thought, 'That's what happened to him.' "
By then, Obama had returned from Indonesia and was playing basketball at Punahou, a private school in Honolulu.
Inoue lost track of "Barry," as he was known in his school days, until the future president became a U.S. senator from Illinois.
"I thought, 'I'll bet that's him.' By then he was Barack," Inoue said. "I researched his bio and found out he's from Hawaii and he's the same age, and I knew, yeah, that's him.
During the presidential election, a classmate had submitted the class kindergarten picture to Hawaii Business Magazine, which ran it. The adorable photo of 5-year-olds features Obama standing in the third row and Inoue seated in the front.
"I had totally forgotten we were in kindergarten together," Inoue said.
What he remembered was the picture of the two of them. He knew his mother had it in her house in Honolulu, because "she saves everything." Inoue had her send the photo to him, and he had copies of it made. He sent one to the magazine, which ran it earlier this year. Another copy is hanging in his office, prompting the obvious question from patients: "Who is that?"
...
Although he left Hawaii in 1985 when he moved to Hayward to attend chiropractic college, Inoue speaks fondly of his childhood in the Manoa Valley, near the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.
It was a neighborhood where people didn't have to lock their doors, and children mostly walked to school. The majority of residents were Japanese.
"(Obama) was possibly the only African-American in my class," Inoue said. "At that age you don't have so much of that prejudice. Everyone played with each other. I can't say what he went through, experience-wise. I think I read somewhere that when he went to Punahou, he had a bit of a hard time with those issues."
...
Contact reporter Lori Gilbert at (209) 546-8284 or lgilbert@recordnet.com. "
So let me get this straight. The Obama "official story line" is that Obama went to school from 6 to 10 years old from 1967 to 1971 in Indonesia, but we find out now that he went to school in Hawaii as an 8 year old third grader.
Gee, how come we didn't hear about this in his autobiographies since they are the paragon of Obama truth telling?
just received this note by e-mail FWIW:
“..... that is another photo-shopped picture. I opened it and it was done by the notorious Ducky that put together so many of the other fake ones. Info from the 3rd grade picture properties is:
Ducky 2 ® Õ 2 0 0 9 D e c e m b e r 0 4 C T Y – U N D A T E D C O U R T E S Y P H O T O , S c o t t I n o u e a n d P r e s i d e n t B a r a c k O b a m a a s t h e y w e r e i n t h e t h i r d g r a d e , 1 9 6 9 a t N o e l a n i E l e m e n t a r y S c h o o l , a u t o g r a p h e d b y t h e p r e s i d e n t . P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F S C O T T I N O U E ÿî !Adobe dÀ
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091201/A_LIFE1201/912010313#STS=g3rtpvmi.12yg
there’s a very fuzzy image of a letter supposedly from the WH in relation to that image.
Has anyone been able to read the contents?
btw, I have had that image of the two boys saved in my collection since October 4.