Hall of Fame 2002 Inductees

According to Deborah Goldring, class of ’77, “Ralph Carey was the best teacher I had at Beach High. He was devoted, positive and brought out the best in you.” Ralph Carey served as Beach High’s debate coach from 1969-1980. Carey was a model teacher. He had unlimited hours for his students and did everything to ensure that his students would have the opportunity to compete in debates.

The National Forensic League recognized Carey as one of the most outstanding teachers in his field. He also brought numerous National, State and County championships in debate to Beach High. Excelling in competition became the norm for the Miami Beach debate team under Carey’s leadership. Ralph Carey passed away in 1995. However, his memory will live on through the students he has inspired. As past principal Dr. Solomon Lichter wrote, “Mr. Ralph Carey truly exemplified the motto of Miami Beach Senior High: ‘We’re from Beach and we couldn’t be prouder’”.

The number one song, A Moment like This, written for the hit TV Show, American Idol, is one of the latest in a string of over 40 chart toppers for this Florida native. In the last 25 years, Desmond has collaborated as a songwriter and/or producer for recordings by such widely diverse artists as Kiss, Cher, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Trisha Yearwood, Michael Bolton, Alice Cooper and numerous others. The mega smash, "Livin' La Vida Loca" which Desmond co-wrote and produced for pop star Ricky Martin, earned Desmond several Grammy nominations within the categories of Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Pop Album.

A graduate of NYU, Desmond and his group, Desmond Child and Rouge, released two albums for Capital Records and appeared on Saturday Night Live. Desmond eventually left the group to travel and study acting. By the 90’s he released his first solo album, "Discipline", for Bektra Records and enjoyed his own top-40 hit, "Love on a Rooftop". In 2000, Desmond executive produced the groups, MDO and Bahamen and followed up with a second album for Ricky Martin that produced two hits and a duet with Christina Aguilera. In November 1999, with partners Winston and David Simone, the music publishing company, Deston Songs, was opened with offices In Miami Beach, New York, Los Angeles and Nashville.

The Latin Songwriters Hall Of Fame and LA MUSA AWARDS was founded by Desmond Child (Chairman/CEO) & Rudy Pérez (President) under the auspices of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in New York in 2012. Desmond and Rudy were inspired to create an organization exclusively devoted to recognizing and spotlighting the artistic achievements of Latin music creators. Its mission is to educate, preserve, honor and celebrate the musical legacy of the world’s greatest Latin songwriters in every genre while developing and inspiring future generations of authors and composers through workshops, showcases, scholarships and digital initiatives.

In 2008, Desmond Child was inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame and soon joined it’s Board of Directors where he serves on various committees. Established in 1969, the Songwriters Hall of Fame honors those whose work represents a spectrum of the most beloved songs from the world’s popular music songbook.

Desmond Child serves on the ASCAP Board of Directors, which is made up entirely of songwriters and publishers elected from and by the membership every two years. Members of the ASCAP Board are appointed to actively serve on various committees by ASCAP's President and Chairman Paul Williams.

Desmond has contributed his time and energy to numerous charitable organizations, among them: The American Cancer Society, Mt. Sinai Hospital, United Way, the Gay & Lesbian Rim Festival and to AIDS organizations.

Originally from New York, Belvin Friedson moved to Miami Beach with his family when he was eleven. At Ida M. Fisher, Belvin was known for both his good looks and his athletic prowess. These qualities helped him to be elected class president from his 7th through 10th grade years of school and Student Council President in his senior year at Beach High.

After a semester at the University of Florida, Belvin transferred to Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. He returned to Miami and in a true entrepreneurial spirit, he started a series of successful businesses. In the middle of the 50’s, Belvin married Lucille and within a decade he had five children. In the 1960’s, he opened a number of barber colleges during the heat of segregation, but despite protests, Mr. Friedson had black and white students working in tandem and even included styling for African American customers! These evolved into Saveway barber and beauty supply stores, the first of their kind for cash and carry customers. In the true spirit of a visionary, he pioneered the import and distribution of personal-care styling appliances. Windmere emerged with the opening of a factory outside of the Free Trade Zone in China, where he established a working class town of 15,000 employees and set up housing, as well as schools. Recently, the company’s name changed to APPLICA where Belvin remains Chairman Emeritus. Belvin Friedson’s business successes are the qualities that surround his decisions as a fearless, original thinker and an entrepreneur with courage and heart.

Belvin passed away in 2005 after a long illness.

During his 60 years on Miami Beach, Barton S. Goldberg has been involved or taken an active leadership role in almost every organization there is. Perhaps he has more than lived up to his honor at Miami Beach High School where he was nominated MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED in 1951.

After working his way through college and law school at the University of Miami, he worked for Courshon & Courshon, a post which led him to incorporate Jefferson National Bank in 1963. Barton worked for the next 35 years building one of South Florida’s leading community banks. He successfully negotiated the sale of the bank to Colonial Bank in 1997, where he now serves as Chairman of the Board for the South Florida region. His energy has been boundless as suggested by his passion for Miami Beach, for being an unofficial historian, and for the numerous awards that have been bestowed upon him.

Mr. Goldberg was honored by the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce as Man of the Year and a recipient of the James McDonnell Outstanding Board of Governor Award. In addition, he has served and chaired the Miami Beach Zoning Board of Adjustments from 1971 to 1991. His community activism manifests itself in his continued support of the Mount Sinai Medical Center as past Chairman of the Young Presidents Club, past President of the Founders and a member of the Board of Trustees. He is supported in all his endeavors by his loving family who respectfully consider Barton S. Goldberg their role model.

Dr. A. Richard Grossman has dedicated his life to helping burn victims through his reconstructive surgery practice. Grossman graduated from Beach High in 1950 and later attended Emory University and the University of Tennessee Medical School. Since 1964, Dr. Grossman has been living in the San Fernando Valley where he practices plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Sherman Oaks Hospital in Sherman Oaks, California.

Throughout his life, Dr. Grossman has continuously promoted research to improve treatment for burn victims. In 1966, together with McLean Stevenson, Grossman founded the Children’s Burn Foundation, in order to ensure that no children would go without their needs being fulfilled, regardless of ability to pay. Grossman is also the founding director of the Grossman Burn Center, located in Sherman Oaks and Santa Ana. The center has an international reputation; it has received patients from Korea, Africa, China and India. Besides starting the Foundation for Burn Research, Dr. Grossman continues to travel around the United States teaching treatment for burn victims and sharing his compassion for those in need.

Dr. A. Richard Grossman, whose experience with a horrific school fire as a young medical resident forged a lifelong dedication to treating burn victims, died in 2014.

A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Ambassador Litt currently serves as Political Advisor to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill AFB, Florida. David joined the Foreign Service in 1974 and was most recently assigned as U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He had also previously served as Consul General in Dubai. While at the Department of State, he served as director of the Office of Northern Gulf Affairs and as Desk Officer for Saudi Arabia. Other assignments included Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Niamey, Niger, where he won a meritorious honor award, and as consular officer in Palermo, Italy.

David holds a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in International Relations from the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. A linguist, David is fluent in Italian, French, Arabic and Afghan-Persian (Dari). He and his wife Beatrice have two children, Barbara and Giorgio.

One of the country’s most respected entertainment journalists, Jeanne is also a producer and editor covering all media, including the Internet. She honed her skills on TV’s "Entertainment Tonight", where she created the "Inside Entertainment" report and served as special celebrity reporter. She has done feature reporting for "Nightline" and ABC’s "Good Morning America", as well as her own award-winning interview series, "Jeanne Wolf With" on PBS.

She is currently a frequent contributor to the E! Channel. As editor-at-large: entertainment, for Redbook Magazine, Jeanne’s cover stories on John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis, Faith Hill and Melanie Griffith have made international news. She also covers celebrity news as contributing editor for TV Guide and YM magazine. She has also created a weekly TV entertainment column, "Wolf Bytes" on the Internet.

As a documentary producer/writer, Jeanne has won a DuPont Columbia Journalism Citation, Ohio State Awards, a Chicago Film Festival citation, the Freedom Foundation Award and several Emmys. President of her own production company, Pentacom Productions, Inc., Jeanne has served as a board member of AFI Associates, on the board of trustees of Loyola University, and is on the President’s Council of the University of Miami. She is the recipient of the Women of Leadership Award from Pine Manor College.