Pictured to the left of legendary singer Sam Cooke (center) is Atlantic City's Pattie Harris. The photo was taken inside the legendary former Atlantic City hot spot Club Harlem in August 1964. (Courtesy of Betty Jo Spyropulos, who is pictured at far right.)
ATLANTIC CITY — I don’t know if the Art Dorrington Ice Hockey Foundation or the Council of Black Faculty and Staff at Stockton College could have chosen any more deserving honorees this year.
Barbara Gilliam and Pattie Harris are living legends in Atlantic City.
Gilliam is anybody’s idea of a perfect citizen in our community, having spent more than 40 years teaching in area public schools, being a Sunday school teacher at Shiloh Baptist Church, actively supporting the NAACP for her entire adult life and volunteering to help anyone who ever needed a hand, a morsel or a warm coat.
When she accepted the Dorothie Dorrington Award for Community Service on Thursday, Nov. 12 at the Council of Black Faculty and Staff of Stockton College's annual awards, dinner and dance banquet, Gilliam surprised everyone by walking through the audience and pointing out her daughters and grandchildren, her old students, church members and sister-friends from 101 Women Plus, all of whom she described as “giving me all the love and support I need to keep up this energy.”
Her infectious energy swept through the room as she walked and talked with the microphone in hand thanking, touching and kissing people who came out for the evening.
Returning to the podium for a brief moment, she retrieved her plaque and a dozen roses while cameras snapped wildly from every direction. What a grand evening for a grand lady!
On that same evening, Pattie Harris was receiving accolades for a lifetime of achievement in dance, theatre and community service as founder and president of the Atlantic City Dance Theatre.
With her trademark "mohawk" haircut shaved close on the sides, Harris is always eccentric in her elegance, wearing bright colors and sparkling jewelry — a true theatrical personality.
Harris said her award at the Stockton event — the Black Faculty and Staff's 30th annual celebration — was totally unexpected, fantastic, and she was glad to help raise money for annual scholarships.
Born in North Carolina and raised in New Jersey, Harris (known to many as Ms. Pattie) danced in the chorus line at the famous Club Harlem before heading to New York City, where she danced on and off Broadway.
Upon returning to Atlantic City., she opened her own dance school and taught hundreds of girls and many boys tap and jazz before it closed in the early '80s.
She went on to teach at Atlantic-Cape Community College, Rowan and Stockton as an adjunct instructor until recently (at almost 80 years of age, I might add) because of a foot injury, but everyone knows Ms. Pattie is an avid supporter of the arts in this area.
She is constantly called upon for her creative advice and expertise in dance and theatre.
*****
The inspiring young man who received a recent award is Tyrone Logan, Jr., the first Art Dorrington Ice Hockey Foundation alumnus to return home and give back to the foundation as an instructor and mentor to its current participants.
As a boy, Tyrone was a member of Atlantic City Boy Scout Troop 705; he rose to become an Assistant Senior Patrol Leader and an Assistant Scout Master.
In high school, he became a Chief Petty Officer with the Navy Sea Cadet Corps, taught Bible classes to elementary students and played ice hockey with the Mainland Hockey Club until he graduated from Atlantic City High School in 2010.
Currently a public relations major at Rutgers, Tyrone still manages to assist Art Dorrington with various aspects of the ADIHF, as well as help new players at the Skate Zone near Bader Field.
He is truly representative of what can happen when young people are involved in and nurtured by the many community programs and activities in the other Atlantic City.
The following is a list of some lesser-known groups that are still in need of your money, time, equipment or expertise:
Mrs. Elaine Milan is the perfect match for her husband, clearly intelligent, thoughtful and attractive. She had already graduated from Hampton University when she arrived in A.C. in 1964 to work at Indiana Avenue School, and later, she earned her master’s degree at Glassboro.
Art Dorrington's daughter Judah was speechless with pride, and thanked everyone for giving her father “his flowers while he can still see them.”
Sunday at 3pm will feature a skills competition in seven categories among the AHL’s top stars. Monday’s All-Star Game starts 7pm at Boardwalk Hall, pitting the league’s Western Conference stars against their counterparts from the Eastern Conference.
Let’s set the record straight: Kwanzaa is truly African-American. It is NOT a religious holiday.
In a cozy purple sweater and gray sweatpants, the orange Mohawk was expertly coiffed as usual. I remembered attending her 75th birthday party a few years ago and knew then I wanted to hear her story from her own mouth, but she is one hard lady to catch up with.
“This is an important time in Atlantic City’s development and future history as planning and oversight is joined with New Jersey and the CRDA. It’s important that we do what we can to shine in our own right.”
Patti Harris is not only an Atlantic City legend, she is also a legend in the worlds of dance and performing arts. Spending time with her can be like opening a history book with which you can share the most stimulating conversations. Every performing artist, from dancer to singer to poet, should get the chance to meet and work with Harris and learn from her vast experience and expertise. Thanks to her series the “Incubator for Talented Youth,” any serious performing artist can have the opportunity to meet Harris and some of her amazing friends. Harris began the series 10 years ago at Wash’s Inn in Pleasantville. Since that time, she explains, many of the kids who started out with her at the first Incubator have gone on to work professionally in the world of entertainment. “I’ve seen little kids come the first year and participate, and by the following year they have gotten so much better because they work with the professionals who come out and are inspired by them,” she says. These past few years, Incubator events at Kennedy Plaza have been among the...
'A Century of African-American Music' How do you convey the excitement of African-American dance? Pattie Harris' Atlantic City Dance Theatre will set out to do just that Saturday, March 29, with a high-stepping show celebrating 100 years of music and dance at Dante Hall. Tickets ($15) can be purchased at the door or at dantehall.org. Harris, pictured, is an Atlantic City native known worldwide as a dancer and choreographer. She says that Saturday night's celebration will bring back some of the magic and glamour from the city's Club Harlem days. "The Club Harlem was the only place like it on earth," she says. "We produced glamorous and extravagant shows. The lights, the dancing, the girls and the costumes were as big as anything seen in Vegas." Harris says to expect the best in African-American music from the last 100 years. The playlist will include the music of Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Cab Calloway and others. The show starts at 7:30pm, but getting there an hour earlier will provide a chance to meet the performers at a pre-show reception. -- Raymond Tyler 'Caring' at Harrah's In the new PBS documentary, Caring for Your Parents, above, award-winning filmmaker Michael Kirk explores an issue...
When Art Blakey, the legendary jazz drummer (and 2005 Grammy lifetime achievement award recipient), lived in Northfield during the late 1970s and early '80s, he could not help running his bicycle into the side of the 507 NJ Transit bus, which, at the time, stopped right in front of the home he shared with his longtime companion, Sandy Warren, and son, Takashi, at the intersection of Mill and Shore roads. "The bus driver would just sit there and look at him," remembers Warren. "He just never really learned how to ride his bike. But he kept trying because he thought, you know, that's a nice thing that you can do in Northfield--you could ride your bike. "It's so weird because you think of someone talented enough to be the world's greatest drummer, who can close his eyes and throw the sticks up in the air and catch them with his eyes still closed and never miss a beat - that he should be able to ride a bicycle and do some other things that require a bit of dexterity. He couldn't. Drumming was the only thing that required dexterity that he could do!" Thank heaven for that. In the decades after the Pittsburgh-born...
Pattie Harris knows a lot about developing talent. She's been in the talent business for several decades, coaching and teaching rising stars. Next Tuesday, she'll give some of them a spotlight in her...
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1. Hassan said... on Nov 24, 2011 at 05:46AM
“I was at the banquet. With the sincerity Ms. Gilliam displayed you would have thought the audience was receiving the award. In a since, they were because she seemed to be sharing the accolades.”