Debi Thomas

Ancestors

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Biography

Debi Thomas is Notable.

Debi Thomas is an African American former figure skater and physician. She is the 1986 World champion, the 1988 Olympic bronze medalist, and a two-time U.S. national champion. She was the first Black athlete to win a medal at a Winter Olympics.

Deborah Janine Thomas, daughter of McKinley Thomas and Janice Skelton, was born in 1967. Her parents divorced in 1974.^[1]

Thomas started skating at the age of five. By age nine, she was taking formal lessons and winning competitions. Thomas signed on with coach Alex McGowan, when she was 10 years old. He guided her career through to the Olympics. In February 1986, she took the senior women's title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships becoming the first African American to win a non-novice title. That same year, Thomas earned the top spot at the World Championships. She was 19.

In 1988, Thomas competed at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. She won the bronze medal in the women's figure skating event (finishing behind Canada's Elizabeth Manley and East Germany's Katarina Witt), thereby becoming the first African American to win a medal in any sport at the Winter Olympics. That same year, Thomas won the U.S. Championships.

On March 15, 1988 Debi Thomas married, Brian Vander Hogen in Boulder, Colorado. They divorced.

In 1991 she graduated from Stanford University with a degree in engineering. In 1997 she graduated from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She did two surgical residencies, one at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital and one at the Charles Drew University Medical Center in South Central Los Angeles. Thomas went on to become a practicing orthopedic surgeon specializing in hip and knee replacement.

In 1996, she married sports attorney, Chris Bequette. They had a son, Luc Bequette (b. 1997), who plays defensive tackle for California.

In 2000, Debi Thomas was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame and, in 2002, served as a representative for the U.S. Olympic committee at the winter games in Salt Lake City,^[2]

In June 2005, she graduated from the Orthopedic Residency Program at Charles R. Drew University in Los Angeles. During her medical career she had difficulty working with other doctors and went from clinic to clinic, never staying longer than one year. She was in private practice in Richlands, Virginia, but her practice has since closed.

Sources

1. ↑ "California, U.S., Divorce Index, 1966-1984"
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 1141 #2347414 (accessed 23 January 2022)
   Name: Mckinley R Thomas; Spouse Name: Janice T Skelton; Location: Santa Clara; Date: May 1974.
2. ↑ https://www.blacknamesproject.com/people/debi-thomas-debra-janine-thomas

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debi_Thomas
• Residence: "U.S., Index to Public Records, 1994-2019"
  Ancestry Record 62209 #93857549 (accessed 1 February 2022)
  Name: Debra Janine Thomas [Debbie J Thomas] [Debi J Thomas] [Deborah J Thomas] [Debra Bequette] [J Thomas Debra]; Birth Date: Mar 1967; Residence Date: 2015-2020; Address: 200 E Riverside Dr; Residence: North Tazewell, Virginia, USA; Postal Code: 24630; Second Residence Date: 2007-2020; Second Address: 122 Villa Cir; Second Residence: Richlands, Virginia, USA; Second Postal Code: 24641; Third Residence Date: 2009-2020; Third Address: 201 S 14th St; Third Residence: Herrin, Illinois, USA; Third Postal Code: 62948; Fourth Residence Date: 2007-2020; Fourth Address: 2601 Windward Blvd; Fourth Residence: Champaign, Illinois, USA; Fourth Postal Code: 61821.
• Marriage: "U.S., Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-current"
  Green Bay Press-Gazette; Publication Date: 31/ Aug/ 1988; Publication Place: Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA; URL: https://www.newspapers.com/image/191059259/?article=e072bd0b-be1a-4bd0-a526-632b688f4780&focus=0.019761946,0.31032646,0.17781022,0.6181982&xid=3398
  Ancestry Record 62116 #10598565 (accessed 1 February 2022)
  Debra Janine Thomas marriage to Brian Joseph Vanden Hogen on 24 Jul 1988 in Boulder , Colo ..