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Giving area high school students a forum for recognizing adults they can look up to was one of the purposes of the Kosciusko County Hero Promotion recognition Monday night in Claypool.
Begun last year by the 4-H Junior Leaders and the Boys & Girls Club of Kosciusko County, the program Monday recognized 14 heroes chosen by students from four county high schools.
"This is special because high school kids are nominating adults as special," said Cindy Knepper, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club.
Karen Lowry, Extension 4-H educator, said that after meeting with high school students several years ago, she and Knepper learned that the students felt they were not part of the local community and that "they didn't get anything from the community."
"And their role models - rock stars, athletes - weren't attainable," she said.
The Hero Promotion gives teens a program where they're in charge, where they decide on local people they can respect and look up to, Lowry said.
"It's their community too; there are people in the community that can be considered heroes," she said.
Committees formed at each high school in the county, with each committee headed by a 4-H junior leader, established their criteria: for example, heroes must be adults who bring out the best in others, serve as positive influences in the community, encourage others and listen, and work with and relate to young people as equals.
Some heroes were teachers, like Paula Harris ("She made learning fun in all of her classes," said Adam Prater) or Jeanne McCormack, who was called "nurturing, fun-loving and open-minded."
Others were family members, like Kristin Shoemaker's mother, Diana, ("She's given me the courage to do whatever I've believed in," Kristin said) or Jenny Day's grandfather, Gail Hartman ("He's always there," Day said).
Warsaw DARE Officer Brett Richardson was a hero for teaching alternatives to taking drugs and for using his own time to do things for other people. And Don Craw, a Spanish teacher who died in a car accident last fall, was recognized for showing students the importance of education and for his honesty and courage.
Heroes by school were: Warsaw Community High School - Paula Harris, Beth Cramer, Lynnette Markley and Jeanne McCormack; Whitko High School - Jennifer Frieden, Walter Malicki, Brian Sprunger and Jerry Gidley (accepted by her husband, Jon); and Tippecanoe Valley High School - Joyce Walters, Diana Shoemaker, Gail Hartman, Brett Richardson and Don Craw (accepted by TVHS principal Charles Mills).
Wawasee High School had earlier honored Kristin Wooldridge as their hero in a separate ceremony.
All the heroes were thanked by Knepper for "being special and significant in a young person's life."
