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Boston Globe
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Bobby Sherman, teen idol in the 1960s and '70s, dies at 81
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up He was part of a lineage of teen heartthrobs who emerged as mass-market, youth-oriented magazines and TV took off, connecting fresh-scrubbed Ricky Nelson in the 1950s to David Cassidy in the '60s, all the way to Justin Bieber in the 2000s. Advertisement Sherman had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart — 'Little Woman,' 'Julie, Do Ya Love Me,' 'Easy Come, Easy Go,' and 'La La La (If I Had You).' He had six albums on the Billboard 200 chart, including 'Here Comes Bobby,' which spent 48 weeks on the album chart, peaking at No. 10. His career got its jump start when he was cast in the ABC rock 'n' roll show 'Shindig!' in the mid-'60s. Later, he starred in two television series — 'Here Come the Brides' (1968-70) and 'Getting Together' (1971). Advertisement After the limelight moved on, Sherman became a certified medical emergency technician and instructor for the Los Angeles Police Department, teaching police recruits first aid and CPR. He donated his salary. 'A lot of times, people say, 'Well, if you could go back and change things, what would you do?'' he told The Tulsa World in 1997. 'And I don't think I'd change a thing — except to maybe be a little bit more aware of it, because I probably could've relished the fun of it a little more. It was a lot of work. It was a lot of blood, sweat and tears. But it was the best of times.' Sherman, with sky blue eyes and dimples, grew up in the San Fernando Valley, singing Ricky Nelson songs and performing with a high-school rock band. 'I was brought up in a fairly strict family,' he told the Sunday News newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1998. 'Law and order were important. Respect your fellow neighbor, remember other people's feelings. I was the kind of boy who didn't do things just to be mischievous.' He was studying child psychology at a community college in 1964 when his girlfriend took him to a Hollywood party, which would change his life. He stepped onstage and sang with the band. Afterward, guests Jane Fonda, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo asked him who his agent was. They took his number and, a few days later, an agent called him and set him up with 'Shindig!' Sherman hit true teen idol status in 1968, when he appeared in 'Here Come the Brides,' a comedy-adventure set in boom town Seattle in the 1870s. He sang the show's theme song, 'Seattle,' and starred as young logger Jeremy Bolt, often at loggerheads with brother, played by David Soul. It lasted two seasons. Advertisement Following the series, Sherman starred in 'Getting Together,' a spinoff of 'The Partridge Family,' about a songwriter struggling to make it in the music business. He became the first performer to star in three TV series before the age of 30. That television exposure soon translated into a fruitful recording career: His first single, 'Little Woman,' earned a gold record in 1969. 'While the rest of the world seemed jumbled up and threatening, Sherman's smiling visage beamed from the bedroom walls of hundreds of thousands of teen-age girls, a reassuring totem against the riots, drugs, war protests and free love that raged outside,' The Tulsa World said in 1997. His movies included 'Wild In Streets,' 'He is My Brother' and 'Get Crazy.' Sherman's pivot to becoming an emergency medical technician in 1988 was born out of a longtime fascination with medicine. Sherman said that affinity blossomed when he raised his sons with his first wife, Patti Carnel. They would get scrapes and bloody noses and he became the family's first-aid provider. So he started learning basic first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation from the Red Cross. 'If I see an accident, I feel compelled to stop and give aid even if I'm in my own car,' he told the St. Petersburg Times. 'I carry equipment with me. And there's not a better feeling than the one you get from helping somebody out. I would recommend it to everybody.' Advertisement In addition to his work with the Los Angeles Police Department, he was a reserve deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, working security at the courthouse. Sherman estimated that, as a paramedic, he helped five women deliver babies in the backseats of cars or other impromptu locations. In one case, he helped deliver a baby on the sidewalk and, after the birth, the new mother asked Sherman's partner what his name was. 'When he told her Bobby, she named the baby Roberta. I was glad he didn't tell her my name was Sherman,' he told the St. Petersburg Times in 1997. He was named LAPD's Reserve Officer of the Year for 1999 and received the FBI's Exceptional Service Award and the 'Twice a Citizen' Award by the Los Angeles County Reserve Foundation. In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004, then-Rep. Howard McKeon wrote: 'Bobby is a stellar example of the statement 'to protect and serve.' We can only say a simple and heartfelt thank you to Bobby Sherman and to all the men and women who courageously protect and serve the citizens of America.' Later, Sherman would join the 1990s-era 'Teen Idols Tour' with former 1960s heartthrobs Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones of the Monkees and Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits. The Chicago Sun-Times in 1998 described one of Sherman's performances: 'Dressed to kill in black leather pants and white shirt, he was showered with roses and teddy bears as he started things off with 'Easy Come, Easy Go.' As he signed scores of autographs at the foot of the stage, it was quickly draped by female fans of every conceivable age group.' Advertisement Sherman also co-founded the Brigitte and Bobby Sherman Children's Foundation in Ghana, which provides education, health, and welfare programs to children in need. He is survived by two sons, Christopher and Tyler, and his wife. 'Even in his final days, he stayed strong for me. That's who Bobby was — brave, gentle, and full of light,' Poublon wrote.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Oklahoma taxpayers were sold a load of bull about parental choice tax credits
There's a terrible stench that smells a lot like bull excrement emanating from the halls of our state Capitol right now, and Republicans are hoping that Oklahomans plug their nose and pretend their highly touted voucher-like program doesn't stink to high heaven. Many are also likely hoping that their constituents will suffer from a convenient bout of amnesia when it comes to recalling the promises made — and not kept — in 2023 about their Parental Choice Tax Credit Act. As it turns out, Oklahomans were sold a sham when legislators sought to convince us why our hard-earned tax dollars should be used to pay for children's private school educations even while their local public schools continue to struggle financially and academically. Lawmakers swore until they were blue in the face that the program, which allows the Oklahoma Tax Commission to issue individuals checks ranging from $5,000 to $7,500, would expand school choice for low-income children who were trapped in failing schools. To add guardrails to prohibit all 33,000 private school students from claiming the credit and busting our budget, lawmakers prudently capped expenditure at $150 million in 2024, $200 million in 2025 and $250 million in all subsequent years. But I think we all probably knew in our gut exactly where this program was headed when lawmakers refused to implement income limits on who could qualify. Yep, to probably nobody's great surprise, it turns out our legislators capitulated to their wealthy overlords and created a program that heavily benefits those who absolutely do not need government handouts. Over 45% of the 'tax credits' awarded in the spring 2025 semester went to recipients in households that earned more than $150,000 a year, according to an analysis quietly published by the Oklahoma Tax Commission last month. That same analysis revealed that we forked out $19.3 million to cover the spring private school costs for over 7,700 recipients whose households made over $250,000 a year. In comparison, slightly more than 8,100 households whose parents made $75,000 or less received the tax credit, according to the records. Just a little more than a quarter of the roughly 30,000 recipients came from that income bracket, despite half the workers in our state making less than $57,000 a year. Meanwhile, at least one GOP legislator and Gov. Kevin Stitt, a millionaire whose own children attend private school, are pressuring lawmakers to expand access to the rich by removing the program's spending cap. (Lest you forget, Stitt made headlines in 2023 by announcing his family planned to apply for the government handout before backtracking amid public ridicule and questions about the ethics of creating a law that would grow his own checking account.) But if that wasn't enough, earlier this month, The Tulsa World reported that the Oklahoma Tax Commission is trying to claw back $5 million in funding for 1,855 taxpayers whose children did not attend private schools for the entire year. It's not clear which income bracket those students fell into. The publication also reported that the Tax Commission says how much public funding is going to each school is a deep dark 'secret' because checks were made out to individual taxpayers. It's absolutely unacceptable that lawmakers are not willing to be transparent about how our tax dollars are being spent and if we're getting a good return on our investment. At the very least we should all be allowed to see what entities we're subsidizing, though I'd also argue we deserve to know who exactly we're subsidizing. If a family receives this funding, there should be no expectation of privacy. After all, if businesses accept subsidies we all know how much they're receiving. Why should this program be any different? I sure as heck want to know if my governor, legislators or influential donors – Republican or Democrat – are taking charity from the government. Legislators would have you forget that they want to use public money to continue to subsidize the costs of a small subset of rich children whose parents have fled the public school system that 700,000 children rely on. The exodus further exacerbates the gap between the haves and have nots. To further rub salt in the wound, many private schools used the new 'tax credit' to raise tuition. An Oklahoma Watch analysis found that about 12% of 171 participating private schools capped tuition rates near $7,500, the max a family can receive. Some schools raised tuition rates 100%. Apparently our lawmakers are so humiliated by the failure of this program that they're hoping nobody will notice it because over the past month, I haven't seen a single legislator tout how great these outcomes are. It was actually an Oklahoma Voice reader who brought the Tax Commission report to my attention. Since our lawmakers are on a quest to cut wasteful spending, maybe this program is a place they could start. After all, I'd rather use these funds to bolster the salaries of public school employees, increase the pay foster parents receive, fix our roads, or even give us all some temporary tax relief. Instead we've chosen to invest in this exclusionary and secret program that has little accountability. I guess it's yet another disappointing outcome in a state that always seems to manage to invest in the wrong thing. Janelle Stecklein is editor of Oklahoma Voice. An award-winning journalist, Stecklein has been covering Oklahoma government and politics since moving to the state in 2014. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Lawmakers sold us a sham on parental choice tax credits |Opinion
