The Red Cross Rainmaker, Howard Bonham, is a story of a Native American lad who grows up in the Cherokee "Badlands," as the area becomes part of Oklahoma. Despite his exposure to allegations of injustices done to his forbearers by the government, he takes the high road, leading to an exciting career in journalism and executive positions with the American Red Cross. His journey includes early years as a reporter, when he learns people skills in interviewing celebrities like Will Rogers, Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Clark Gable, Van Johnson, and Sonja Heine. Those lessons enable him later to relate to disaster victims and recruit movie, radio, and political stars like Bob Hope, Madeleine Carroll, Helen Hayes, Charles Laughton, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to help in Red Cross fundraising. As a Red Cross PI officer in the Great Depression, he covers major natural disasters in America. Becoming a Vice Chair in Washington, DC, he writes President Franklin D. Roosevelt's last address to the nation and speeches for Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. He covers President John F. Kennedy in one of the President's final public appearances. Becoming dissatisfied with the politics of success, this compassionate American's wheel comes full circle. He returns to the "Hills of Home," where he publishes grassroots newspapers and continues his service to disadvantaged people.
About the Author: About the Author After editing a daily newspaper and then the investment news-letter that became Standard & Poor's weekly Outlook, I wrote investment reports and directed industry research for Wall Street firms. In the 1990s, I operated Howard Bonham Research, an independent research firm in Houston, Texas. That opportunity arose because scandals of corrupt research on Wall Street had created a demand for independent opinions. I was very much off-Wall Street, yet advantageously located in the hubbub of oil and gas happenings in Houston. I published other industry reports as well. When the bubble burst on Internet stocks and stocks in general in the 1990s, I completed and sold my investment and financial dictionary, and resolved to concentrate on freelance and creative writing. Presently, I live in Maryland, a few miles from the Chesapeake Bay. The eastern shore is one of my favorite places and I go there as often as possible. After a career of writing structured reports on portfolios, companies and industries, I have broken free and am no longer a danger to the investment public. However, I look forward to tackling investment topics again; my cowering MBA muse, whose pinstriped suit was taken to the cleaners in the recent financial crash, still hangs around, waiting for his good -as-new duds to be ready.