Opening the Long Beach Unity Festival Gala on Thursday, Sept. 10, master of ceremonies Tahera Rene Christy treated the 95 enthusiastic guests to a vocal performance at the waterfront law offices of Keesal, Young and Logan.<\/p>\n
Music was an enthusiastic theme, prompting laughter and friendship throughout the evening. Felton Williams, the former president of the Board of Education for the Long Beach Unified School District, stunned the audience with a terrific, semiprofessional rendition of \u201cMy Girl\u201d to great enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
The evening was created to promote unity in underserved communities through music, the arts and healthy lifestyle initiatives.<\/p>\n
Special guests were introduced, including Long Beach City College Board of Trustees President Uduak-Joe Ntuk; Long Beach harbor commission President Steve Neal; LBUSD Superintendent David Zaid; Executive Vice President of Avanath Capital Carly Stevenson; TCC Family Health CEO Dr. Elisa Nicholas; and Williams.<\/p>\n
Following a video of supporter Samuel \u201cSkip\u201d Keesal, the Special Honoree Tribute was presented by Williams to Steve Keesal, who received the award on behalf of his late father.<\/p>\n
Awards of Unity Impact were also presented to Kesha Ealy, vocalist and playwright; \u201cExperiencing the Dream: MLK the Musical\u201d; Tashara Gavin-Moorehead, independent artist, educator and activist; Topekia Jones, director of elementary education and equity at Paramount Unified School District; Tony Pope, supervisor of community services, for Long Beach\u2019s Parks, Recreation and\u00a0 Marine Department; and Greg Smith, CEO and founder of BBallers Hoops Academy.<\/p>\n
Unity Champion awardees were Parris Jones, vice president of operations with Avanath Capital; and Eric Curbelo, general manager of The Home Depot. There was also a musical tribute for Special Legends Awardees Rev. Dr. Mark and Rev. Hermia-Shegog Whitlock, with the awards presented by Mark Whitlock III.<\/p>\n
A terrific dance selection was presented by the Cabrillo High School Dance Company. Their lively presentation prompted participation from the audience. Interspersed throughout the entertainment of the evening were opportunities to donate, which the audience responded to with enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
Seen at the Scene: Steve and Rev. Stephanie Adams, Councilwoman Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, Beth Keesal, Steven and Hope Keesal, David and Donica Zaid, Steven and Katonja Neal,Felton and Shialyn Williams, Dr. Elisa Nicholas, Rev. Dr. Mark and Rev. Hermia Shegog-Whitlock, Lessie Thompson and Bruce Todd. Representing KYL staff were Richard Brown, Marilyn Whitcomb, Kelli Gardener, Vicki Grasman, Denise Fisher and Andrea Trucios.<\/p>\n
News of Social events with charitable purposes may be sent to Shirley Wild at spwild@verizon.net. Please include a contact phone number. Send high-resolution jpeg photos, by attachment, to spwild@verizon.net and include group name and identification of individuals from left. Call Shirley at 562-594-9468 for more information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opening the Long Beach Unity Festival Gala on Thursday, Sept. 10, master of ceremonies Tahera Rene Christy treated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[23,131,133,132,648],"class_list":["post-462573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-shirley-wild-column"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}