Fine examples of citizenship outweigh freakish behavior

It's easy to become jaded after being smothered in coverage of Tiger Woods, political imbiciles, balloon boys and a thousand other silly things. In this issue of the paper, among other things, we have some very special local folks who should remind us that the world isn't going completely crazy.

On Page 2 we have a story about some local people who decided to make Christmas special for the children of migrant workers. Three members of the Knights of Columbus, Ricardo Gonsalves, Kevin Boudreau and Hiram S. Pedraza, all decided to raise money and hold a special event for these children.

The event, being held today at the Knights of Columbus hall in Lake Placid, will serve food and gifts to 125 children. These are children whose parents work in the groves for meager paychecks. There isn't much left over to give their children after all the necessities are paid for each week. These are not spoiled children.

Volunteers from St. James Catholic Church helped select gifts and wrap them. Nellie Brown, Lorraine Pekar and Bill Travers are just some of the volunteers.

What none of them realized is how many children they would give to this year. At first they imagined 50, but the number quickly grew to 125. There's little doubt that there are others out there as well.

What these fine folks did was look beyond themselves and took the spirit of giving to a new level. They didn't worry about all the nastiness swirling about the immigration debate. Instead, they decided to help children who don't normally have people enter their lives and help all that much. We think this is a wonderful thing.

Another example of an outstanding example of doing the right thing is city of Sebring employee Casey Lapadula. This young man works at the city's municipal golf course and he found a wallet with $1,000 in it in a golf cart.

A lot of people wouldn't have resisted temptation, but Lapadula did. He turned over the wallet to his bosses, and it was returned to the rightful owner without a dollar missing. His honesty says a lot about the kind of fine young man he is.

There are dozens and probably hundreds of people like the ones mentioned above who call Highlands County home. They make decisions every day that are honest and done for the right reasons. Often no one but them even knew about it. They do it because it's the right thing to do. That says everything about their character.