Vote on your nominees for St. Louis-area person of the year
Just to be clear, this is an informal survey of the opinions of people who read the Talk of the Day blog. We aren’t really naming an official “person of the year.” We have no magazine to adorn with the person’s face, we have no valuable sculpture to award to the person at a $500-a-plate dinner.
We’re just talking about newsmakers here as we muse over the ending of the 2008 year.
So, as I mentioned in an earlier Talk of the Day item, one of you suggested that we talk about the St. Louis-area person of the year. I said we’d use the criteria that Time magazine uses for its annual end-of-year annointment: “The person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year.”
In the earlier TOTD item, you all nominated who you thought would be good choices. Today, we offer a poll for you to vote among those nominees. I listed the nominations in the order in which they appear in the last TOTD topic. I excluded people I thought were way too obscure to capture a general audience. I excluded people who, well, weren’t people (sorry, Uno). I excluded myself; I’m not sure my kids would even name me person of the year.
So, off you go. Time to vote.
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Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
http://www.pujolsfamilyfoundation.org/index2.html
Missy, the above link is to Jose’ Alberto’s non profit that works to help families who are struggling with caring for their children with Down Syndrome.
As far as the debate on “someone who killed innocent people” being named “person of the year”…look at the criteria and then get back to me.
Seriously, you should just say the criteria is bad, not the choices.
PERSPECTIVE:
Hitler won Time’s “Man of the Year” once and Stalin won twice.
Raymond Burke is actually Archbishop Emeritus of St. Louis.
Sheriff Gary Toelke, Franklin Co, should be included.
Eileen: We were thinking about Thoelke (although, as I mentioned, these were readers’ nominations), but he wasn’t really in the news for anything huge this year. He certainly has been in other recent years.
Kurt, appologize for the moronic comment, the article did not load and all I saw was the poll. Read the article and I will agree with your position.
Boyd, thank you for the callout, that also helped me find the article on his explaination, I will accept the Knucklehead title.
Well, Kurt, you tried to get your point across by not only explaining the basic criteria but also reiterated why the names made the list, yet people still didn’t get it. Then again, Obama got elected and had accomplished nothing..so no surprise here.
I voted for Carlos Brito, a man that I cannot stand, as Person of the Year, as he has affected the city of St. Louis, it’s vendors, and much of the nation with his current job cuts and his long term goal of cutting much more than just jobs. I would say he has had a much bigger impact on St. Louis than the top five vote-getters…like him or not.
Thank you, “No longer questioning.” And please forgive me for name-calling, which is rarely ever constructive or beneficial to any issue/situation. I was a bit overly touchy this morning. Your candid appraisal of your understandable haste to judgment as the result of insufficient information is honest and appreciated — and serves as a reminder that we - myself included - could curb our occasional lapses into incivility.
Looking forward to your posts in the future….
Firefighter Hummert at a fire, while serving to the needs of the citizens was taken from this life, his family and his career he loved dearly. To work so hard in the fire academy, then with his career at the Maplewood Fire Department, to end his life in such a useless way was devastating.
He dedicated his early life to public service, and his commitment to the citizens of Maplewood and St. Louis County and City was commendable and his life was too short, ended by a malicious act, he was murdered doing the profession he loved, serving his fellowman as a Firefighter and Public Servant in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area.
I am staying with the St Louis School teachers on this, although, since my business is in Maplewood, Ryan Hummert is right up there. Everyone else is a distant third placed behind these two, especially those who get paid a great deal more than either the school teachers and firefighter Hummert.
If I were some of these latter, I’d be embarrassed at having my name on the list. In fact Kurt, why not exclude all from the list who, on a average make more than $125,000 per year? I suspect that this list would suddenly get shorter.
Voting for Randy Grim is a vote for all the people that works with him in Stray Rescue of St.Louis. The volunteer staff that he has recruited has done so much for the St.Louis community. Not just are they helping the dogs and cats in the local area, as well as other areas in the country, but they are helping the people that adopt these animals. How many of our lives are saved and made stronger by the animals in our care?