The Coro Center For Civic Leadership held its third annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership and Diversity Awards Jan. 18 at Heinz Field.

The Leadership Award was presented to an individual who exemplifies outstanding leadership in business, nonprofits or government. The Diversity Award was given to two organizations—one for an organization of more than 50 employees and one for less than 50 employees.

From left: Pittsburgh School Board Superintendent Mark Roosevelt won the Leadership Award; Candi Castleberry-Singleton, UPMC chief diversity officer, won the Large Organization Diversity Award; Jeffrey Dorsey, executive director, Union Project, won the Small Organization Diversity Award, and Sala Udin, head of CORO.

The Children’s Sickle Cell Foundation Inc. hosted a “Dazzle In Denim” event at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association in Oakland. The event promoted awareness of sickle cell disease and the sickle cell trait. This was an evening of awareness, entertainment and included a silent auction. The attire was “Denim Chic” and the honorary chairperson was Pittsburgh Steeler Ryan Clark and his wife, Yonka. Several Steelers, including Troy Polamalu, came out in support of the fundraiser. The cost was $100 per person.

SURROUNDED BY STEELERS—Andrea Williams, founder and CEO of the Sickle Cell Foundation, stands in the middle of a group of Steelers. From left: Troy Polamalu, Ryan Clark, Deasha Townsend, Charlie Batch, Greg Warren, Daniel Sepulveda, Tyrone Carter, Max Starks and Jeff Reed.

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Led by Dr. Walter J. Turnbull, who started the group in 1968, the Boys Choir of Harlem sang at the White House for nearly every president since Lyndon B. Johnson, and it was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Bill Clinton. But it did not survive long enough to perform for the country’s first Black president.

What happened to this internationally acclaimed choir? For more than three decades, they sang Mozart in Latin, Bach in German and Cole Porter and Stevie Wonder in English, from Alice Tully Hall in New York to Royal Albert Hall in London.

THE BOYS CHOIR OF HARLEM

The choir’s last official performance was in 2007, around the time of the death of its founder,  Turnbull. But no one ever announced that it was gone. Board members and alumni had hoped to revive it, but according to a New York Times article they acknowledged that they had not had any success.