Warren McDaniels, the first black fire chief of New Orleans, died Sunday. He was 63. The New Orleans Fire Department did not release a cause of death for McDaniels, who was a 33-year veteran of the department.
McDaniels became the first black superintendent of the department in 1993. He retired at the end of 2002.
McDaniels dropped out high school after his sophomore year. He worked odd jobs and served three years in the Navy.
Eight years after leaving school, McDaniels enrolled in an adult-education program to learn how to drive 18-wheelers. That program gave him the chance to take a test for the General Equivalency Diploma, or GED, which, in turn, let him take the test to join the Fire Department.
Because of where that test led him, McDaniels later called the GED "a second chance at life."
Genoa Leilani Keawe, one of the most enduring and beloved voices in Hawaiian music, has died. She was 89. The icon of traditional music in the islands died in her sleep Monday at home in Papakolea.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
