Gymnast & Actor Kurt Thomas Has Passed

Pommel horse fight scene GOAT. Rest In Peace

LSU gymnast Ron Galimore made the 1980 Olympic team, that didn't compete because of politics, with Thomas. Found this article and picture. They grew up together in the Miami area.



Included in the caption for this picture: "Salt and Pepper"

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...The Junior Olympics was a “stepping stone” for several other Florida Olympians: Kurt Thomas, Kim Chace and Carrie Englert Zimmerman. In Miami, we ran two week training camps for the four regional champions who were going to nationals. The two age groups were 12-14 and 15-18 male and female. Ron Galimore and Kurt Thomas filled the two boy age groups for 1972 in Spokane AAU JO Championships and again in 1973 for Ann Arbor. Kurt won the national all-around title in the 1973 NAAUJO’s at the University of Michigan while Ron was third in his age group. ...

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The United State’s First African-American Male Gymnastics Olympian Ron Galimore's USA Gymnastics bio

They mention Ron in Thomas' bio too.

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Salt and Pepper I was a teenager during the fifties and quickly learned that white represented the good guys and black was for the bad guys. This included all the television cowboys as well as Elvis Presley and Pat Boone. I also found what an “entourage” was when I attended the University of Illinois as a physical education major in 1962. The basketball team center was near seven feet tall and named Governor Vaughn. Mr. Patterson, the swimming coach, had him stand on the bottom of the pool with his arms over his head and hold his breath during class to demonstrate how deep the water was. It was good enough for a passing grade considering he couldn‘t swim. After class was over a waiting limousine would pick Governor Vaughn up with all these little guys attending to him and they would drive off. A few good looking girls and a couple of bouncer types rounded out the Vaughn party. In a similar way, Kurt would always have an entourage with him including the girls and the big guys and his current attendee named Norman Barry. It would make me laugh! I noticed during training that Kurt had begun to call Ronnie “pepper” and Ronnie was calling Kurt “salt.” At an opportune moment I called Kurt over and said, “I hear you guys with that nickname stuff, but in my opinion you have the names reversed; Kurt, you’re the pepper and Ronnie is the salt.” I remembered the first picture I saw of Ronnie kneeling with a group of little girls from the Tallahassee Tumbling Tots. I wondering who he was and if he was any good at gymnastics. Boy did I find out!

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Kurt Thomas' USA Gymnastics bio: The Miamian Who Put American Gymnastics on the World Map

RIP

Gymkata GOAT

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Pommel horse fight scene GOAT. Rest In Peace

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Even young me thought it was awfully convenient there was a pommel horse in that town.

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Even young me thought it was awfully convenient there was a pommel horse in that town.

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It’s like they tried to make it look like some kind of stock or whipping post.

But it was chalked up.