Who is your Hero?

Willie Nelson's heroes have always been cowboys, but for me, my heroes have been people who have touched my life in ways that they may never know. My first hero was my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Dale Beltzner who helped me develop self confidence and also taught me not to be so afraid of science and math. He is the man responsible for teaching me what it means to be a leader and I think about him often.

As I was pumping my gas this morning at our neighborhood 7-11, I ran into another of my heroes, but I many not be alone in my fondness of this individual because he is a former Olympian and a local celebrity.

This encounter made me think about heroes. So many people look to celebrities to be role models or heroes and I wondered what others thought about this. A couple of months back, I overheard someone in the supermarket complaining about what a terrible role model Brittany Spears is and how we should not buy her music or the Star magazine, which this woman was coveting (and did purchase). I just laughed to myself thinking, why do people think we should idolize celebrities? For me, I will buy Brittany's albums along with Usher and many others who may not have a pristine social life. Why? Because these artists are good at their art (or at least they have great producers who help them be good at it),and I do not look to celebrities to be role models?

Or do I? Tiger Woods was a role model to me and we all know how that one turned out. At least he is a great athlete and I can appreciate that.

My new hero though, while a celebrity, may not count as "celebrity role model" because I can talk to him, our boys are just a year apart in age and take the same gymnastics class sometimes, and we live in the same neighborhood.

So why do I find Bart Conner heroic? Here's why. He greets everyone with a smile, always. He's active in his son's life. I always see him and his wife at the park with their son or at the gym, or out and about in our community. He's also active in our community. He has worked in the area to help develop the Olympic training facility on the Oklahoma River. He's a great model of health. He doesn't look any different than he did when he was in college. He also makes me feel blessed to live in our community and he genuinely cares for other people.

Bart's wife, Nadia has always been a role model of mine for achieving the perfect 10, but as far as people go, Bart gets a perfect 10 in my book.

Anyone out there care to share their heroes with me?