By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com
One of the stark truths of this blog is that it hasn’t offered much praise for a newspaper where I worked for nearly 18 years. I have watched it decline to a level I no longer recognize.
Then the Amarillo Globe-News did something the other day that I find truly inspiring. Instead of singling out a Man and Woman of the Year for 2020, it chose its Men and Women of the Year: the frontline medical staffs in the Texas Panhandle who have risked their lives saving others’ lives in the wake of the killer pandemic.
A no-brainer, you say? Eh, one could make that argument. Except that not all publications that bestow these honors have followed that lead.
The Globe-News solicits nominations from the public. It would gather its management team at the end of a calendar year to deliberate over who should get the honor. The newspaper would dispatch a reporter to interview the subject and those close to him and her, concocting some pretext for the interview. Then the paper would publish its Man and Woman of the Year on Jan. 1. The paper has honored its Man of the Year since 1950; its Woman of the Year since 1974.
It’s still doing so, but with a dramatically different setup than I remember. Whatever the case, the choice this year was at one time an easy call and an inspired one.
Perhaps every community in America should honor their first responders, their medical staffs, their emergency services personnel in such a manner.
The Panhandle has been staggered by the toll brought by the virus. Its acute-care hospitals have been stretched to the limit. Its nursing homes and assisted living centers have been ravaged. They all are staffed by dedicated men and women who have become in many cases “surrogate loved ones” to patients who have struggled with the COVID-19 virus. They have held the hands of patients, told them of their love for them … and then watched many of them die.
It has been heartbreaking beyond measure.
Yes, they deserve to be honored for their hard work and their selflessness. As the newspaper stated in its New Year’s Day editorial: We also know this year, that while there were others nominated for this distinction, we found none more deserving. After all, a year like no other should yield honorees like no other.
Well … done.