Tuesday, 20,000 fans crammed into the Staples Center to say goodbye to Michael Jackson.

An additional 6,500 filled the Nokia Theater across the street, and a million more people were expected to watch online and in movie theaters.

The Reed Green Coliseum at the University of Southern Mississippi can seat 8,095. It’s likely to be nearly full Saturday as Mississippi says goodbye to football great Steve McNair.

The Saturday memorial service will follow a public viewing Thursday in Nashville, which is also likely to draw crowds in the thousands.

Yet it’s unlikely that few more than 100 people gathered at Laird Funeral Home Tuesday for the funeral of Robert Dalby Kuehnle. There probably won’t be thousands of people gathering at First Baptist Church today to remember Irma Moore.

America most certainly has poor taste in role models.

We still don’t know exactly what caused Michael Jackson’s early death. Prescription drug abuse seems a likely factor based on national media reports.

We do know about Jackson’s life. He was accused of child sexual abuse. He was tried and acquitted on charges of child molestation. And he once dangled a small child over a balcony’s edge.

Steve McNair has been lauded as a great community member and a wonderful humanitarian in times of need.

We know his cause of death — gunshot wound to the head, was most likely inflicted by the 20-year-old woman with whom he was cheating on his wife and betraying his sons.

Most folks don’t know much about Robert Dalby Kuehnle.

A Natchez native, Kuehnle was a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Irma Moore, also a Natchez native, was a licensed social worker. She worked at Southwest Mississippi Mental Health and the Baptist Children’s Village in Jackson during her lifetime. She was an internationally licensed drug and alcohol counselor.

And she volunteered with her church’s preschool choir, and she sang in the adult choir.

It’s obvious that America is hailing the life’s works of the wrong people this week.

Kuehnle and Moore represent dozens upon dozens of heroes and role models our country has to offer. Each community has their duo this week, I’m sure.

But our young people don’t know the Kuehnles and the Moores of the world, and at this rate, they never will.

Children don’t create the role models of the world — adults do.

Children aspire to do, be and dream about what they see adults closest to them doing, being and dreaming about.

As adults, we must teach the children in our lives to respect those worthy of respect. That comes naturally when our own heroes are good ones.

Jackson was a fantastic singer. McNair’s throwing arm was like magic.

But their actions off stage cast unforgivable shadows on their status as good role models. The questions surrounding both men’s deaths only make matters worse.

We can’t change the world’s obsession over Jackson and McNair, but we can be honest with ourselves, our families and our children about the things these men did and why they are not heroes.

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.