This morning, we need your help. That’s correct, the newspaper’s staff is putting out an APB — all-points bulletin — to help us in a man, and woman, hunt.

Each February for the last few decades, The Natchez Democrat has recognized your selections for the rare few people who go above and beyond the call of duty — our community’s Unsung Heroes.

Thousands of people live in our beautiful community, but many of us simply go through our lives making it from one day to the next, while others follow a much more altruistic life path.

These are the neighbors who regularly cut their elderly neighbor’s grass without so much as a thought, or the church members who are always volunteering with virtually no regard for themselves and certainly no interest in receiving any recognition.

The latter trait is why we need your help. The best nominees are not ones who seek fame, glory or any kind of recognition. Hardly, in fact, in most cases they shy away from any attention, making them quite stealthy to anyone not inside their inner circles.

The process for nominating someone is pretty simple and straightforward.

First, obviously, you have to identify someone who you feel deserves recognition for his or her good deeds in the community and whose work isn’t, well, their work.

Usually people who actually work for a charitable organization — particularly if they’re paid to do so — probably don’t make the best nominees.

Volunteers at those organizations and just people who do good deeds on their own — people like previous nominees Joe and Dianne Good, who volunteer to give local young people exposure to culture outside Natchez — are excellent nominees.

Once your Unsung Hero “target” is identified, just send me the person’s name and a brief bit about why you feel that person should receive recognition, the types of good deeds they do and how we can reach the person.

Nominees can be submitted through an email to me, a written note — either mailed to the newspaper or dropped off at our office — or by calling me.

It’s that simple.

If you’d like for the person who you’re nominating to know you’re the one who ratted out their good deeds, let me know, otherwise nominations will be kept in confidence.

Even if you seek to remain in the Unsung Heroes nomination shadows, please include your name and number with your nomination, so that we may contact you to ask additional questions if necessary.

The deadline for submitting nominations is Friday, Feb. 6.

After that date, all of the nominations will be reviewed by a team of our staff members and narrowed down to approximately eight of the best candidates.

Once the 2015 Unsung Heroes are selected, the fun begins. As our staff calls upon the usually unsuspecting heroes, we’re usually in for a litany of excuses why they should not be included in the group.

“You must be joking,” one will certainly say.

“I haven’t done anything special,” we usually hear.

And the excuses will continue until we insist that we’re not joking and that they are, in fact, special and worthy of recognition.

In a world in which we all spend too much time focused on the bad, spending some time thinking about all the good people still can be quite rewarding and fun.

We’re looking forward to seeing a great new crop of Unsung Hero nominations this year so please start sending them our way soon.

 

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.