Karen Hastings always suspected there was much more to the man she knew as “Jah” than he let on.

Jah, who delivered newspapers to Hastings and her neighbors in the Marco Polo condominium on Kapiolani Boulevard for nearly 25 years, was notoriously tight-lipped about his past. Still, what lay on the surface was intriguing enough — not just the huge 6-foot-5 frame, the dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail, and hands the size of baseball gloves, but also the generosity, gentle demeanor and incandescent intellect.

Ken Nelson met Jah while Nelson was working the condo’s security desk, and they bonded over shared interests in physics and neuroscience. Their friendship lasted long after Nelson found new work.

“He was highly principled and a little eccentric,” Nelson said. “Some people avoided him because of the way he looked, but if you got to know him, you could see what a special person he was.”

Jah was so loved by the Marco Polo residents that when his mo-ped was stolen, they chipped in to buy him a new one.

Still, it wasn’t until Jah died in June, alone in a small Waikiki apartment, that folks finally learned the history of the enigmatic newspaper carrier.

After learning of his friend’s death, Nelson contacted Jah’s district manager and learned his real name was Homer Thurman. An online search revealed this Homer Thurman was the same still known in his hometown Chicago as one of the state’s greatest prep athletes.

Thurman had been the subject of an intensive search by Chicago sports writers curious to know what had become of the former state champion track and field athlete and all-state football and basketball player.

According to columnist Taylor Bell, Thurman’s accomplishments belied a troubled childhood during which he was abandoned by his father and physically abused by his mother.

Poor academics derailed Thurman’s chance to play Division I basketball (though he did play for a time with the Harlem Globetrotters). A pair of failed relationships produced three children but no respite from the emotional wounds that eventually drove Thurman further away from other people.

Until Nelson contacted Bell, no one back home in Chicago had heard anything about Thurman since 1974.

Jah nee Thurman will get one last, overdue honor in November with his induction into the Illinois High School Basketball Hall of Fame.

“We knew there was something about Jah,” Hastings says. “We had no idea what a superstar he was."