CNN will select its hero of year

BY DAVID BAUDER

Published: November 26, 2008

NEW YORK — A woman who moved to Louisiana to help Hurricane Katrina survivors, a marathon runner who gets homeless people on their feet, a man who helped clean up after a deadly Oklahoma tornado and several community organizers will be honored by CNN in its second annual heroes special at 8 p.m. Thursday.

The awards show, unusual for a cable news network, will give an extra $100,000 to one of 10 people selected by viewers through a vote on the CNN Web site. Each of the finalists receives $25,000.

The special is an attempt to honor people who may not make the news but are doing things to help others, said Jim Walton, CNN Worldwide president. There were more than 10,000 nominations for potential heroes.

A panel that included Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall, Deepak Chopra, Richard Branson, Magic Johnson and George Lopez selected the 10 finalists. They are:

→Tad Agoglia, founder of First Response Team of America, which goes into disaster sites to clean up in the immediate aftermath. Agoglia and his team traveled to Picher, OK, following the deadly May 10 tornado.

→Maria Ruiz of El Paso, Texas, who crosses the border to provide help to poor children in Juarez, Mexico.

→Liz McCartney, who moved from Washington to St. Bernard Parish east of New Orleans to help Hurricane Katrina victims rebuild.

→Anne Mahlum, a marathon runner from Philadelphia who started the "Back on My Feet” program that gets homeless people running.

→David Puckett, a Savannah, Ga., man who gives prosthetics and medical equipment to Mexico’s poor.

→Maria Da Silva, a Los Angeles nanny who founded and finances the Jacaranda School for AIDS orphans in her native Malawi.

→Viola Vaughn, a Detroit native who retired to Senegal and created a program to educate girls.

→Yohannes Gebregeorgis, who returned from the United States to his native Ethiopia to start a program offering library books to children.

→Phymean Noun, a Cambodian genocide survivor who lives in Toronto and has opened schools and provided health services to children in her native country.

→Carolyn LeCroy, a former prison inmate from Norfolk, Va., who started The Messages Project, which films messages from prison inmates to their families.

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