_______ Malverne/West HeMpstead ______
HERALD GREAt HomEs: the Ultimate local Home showcase Pull-out $1.00
Davison students witness history
DAV Breakfast Club takes off
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JANUARY 28 - FEBRUARY 3, 2021
Vol. 28 No. 4
He’s moved up the ranks Malvernite is promoted to Air Force chief master sergeant By NAkEEm GRANt ngrant@liherald.com
Courtesy Kathy Carpino
mAlVERNitE tHomAs CARpiNo, right, was promoted to chief master sergeant last month. He received a proclamation from Lt. Col. Nathan Bump.
When Malvernite Thomas Carpino joined the Air Force in August 2001, his parents, the Rev. Thomas and Kathy Carpino, recalled, he was as eager as any teenager to serve his country. A 2000 graduate of Valley Stream North High School, Tom attended Nassau Community College for a semester, but decided that he wasn’t a good fit for college. “He jumped right in and signed up for six years to serve,” his father said of
Tom’s decision to volunteer for service. “He went in at a peaceful time, thinking that he’d be able to go in and experience the military life. As you can imagine, everything changed.” After the Sept. 11 attacks, Tom was quickly deployed overseas to Iraq. His passion and eagerness, however, never wavered. “For us, as parents, we prayed him through a lot of those deployments,” his father said. “In all honesty, his character fit him well for the responsibility that he ended Continued on page 9
Young W.H. gospel singer makes the Billboard charts By NAkEEm GRANt ngrant@liherald.com
Four years ago, during a car ride with her father, Kevin Smith, then 7-year-old Janessa Smith, of West Hempstead, was singing a gospel song that her father had never heard before. When he asked her what it was, she said she had written it. A music producer who owns a record label, Inspired Recording, Kevin decided to record the song, “One Day,” at his home recording studio. “I wasn’t taking it seriously at first,” he said, “but when I realized how natural she was hitting the notes, that’s when I knew she had
something special. I was so impressed at how she managed to record the bridge, the chorus and even the ad-libbing.” Smith released his daughter’s song in 2019, and distributed it through DistroKid, a digital music distribution service that shares songs on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Tidal, TikTok and YouTube. “One Day” made its way on to several gospel radio stations, but Janessa landed on the Christian Billboard charts with her follow-up single, “He’s Able,” last year. The song peaked at No. 210 out of 1,000, and has been on the Billboard charts for the past 20 weeks. Now 11, Janessa is the youngest
Janessa smith recording artist on the Christian Billboard rankings, according to Kevin. “This is all unexpected for us,” he said. “I’ve been doing music for about 30 years, and I had a song with my band, Calvary and Friends, that was in the top 30 in 2008 on the indepen-
dent gospel charts, but she got to the charts within a month.” Kevin and his wife, Ann Marie, who are Jamaican, were surprised to see that Janessa’s music has also become popular in some countries overseas, including parts of the Caribbean, South Africa and Nigeria. Last Sunday she was nominated for 2021 Voices of Gospel Music
Awards in the categories Youth Artist of the Year and New Artist of the Year. A sixth-grader at the Academy Charter School in Hempstead, Janessa admitted that she doesn’t fully understand the buzz around her music. Only a few of her classmates know about her music career, she Continued on page 3