Thursday, Jan. 01, 2009

2008 was memorable for faces and stories

Over the course of 2008, I've had the opportunity to write columns about people with compelling personal stories.

Some overcame diseases or disabilities. Some simply stepped up to make their community -- and even the world -- better places.

Others are those who never miss an opportunity to enjoy life.

So I'll update you on some of them, each of whom bring a little positivity to an otherwise troubled world:

Little Henry Johnson's exuberance makes you forget he's been through so much so soon in life. The 6-year-old boy (Jan. 27 column) was born June 15, 2002, with Apert's Syndrome. His fingers were fused together and so were his toes, making his hands and feet look like mittens. His skull had already hardened, something that normally doesn't happen for several months after birth. He's had six operations and many other procedures, the most recent on Dec. 19 and with more to come.

But with his freed-up fingers, he plays the guitar, keyboard and drums. He bounces around the house and drives his toy Jeep around the back yard.

Because he received so much help from the Children's Craniofacial Association, his mother, Rachel, helped organize Henry's March, a benefit walk and run in March. The event raised $24,000 to help other children needing facial surgeries. The second one is scheduled March 22 at California State University, Stanislaus.

This one actually began with a 2007 column that I updated a year later and merits another mention. I wrote about how William Lawlis Pace, who lives in a Turlock retirement home, set a Guinness World Record for living the longest -- 89 years at the time -- with a bullet in his head.

The native Texan was shot accidentally by his brother in October 1917. The bullet missed his brain and spinal cord, lodging in a bone near his left ear.

"I never had a headache or nothing," he told me when I interviewed him for the column. (Two days later, the story became an "exclusive" for one of the Sacramento-area TV stations. Go figure.)

Guess what? Each day, Pace sets a new record, now at 91 plus years and counting. He's still going, with his 100th birthday coming Feb. 27.

Modesto High senior Jon Key (April 15 column) never did get his prom date with country music phenom Taylor Swift. He met her in Sacramento when she performed at the ARCO Arena because his father, Stephen Key, is an inventor who developed a line of hologram guitar picks. Stephen Key created picks depicting images of Swift and became well-acquainted with Swift's father as they marketed them. The Swifts invited the Keys to the performance. Jon, then a junior at Modesto High, made a bold move by inviting Taylor to be his date for the Modesto High prom. Initially, she accepted. But then she checked her schedule and was booked. Too bad.

Since then, her career has taken off toward superstardom.

"She has become just a bigger star now," Stephen Key wrote in an e-mail. "Her last boyfriend was one of the Jonas Brothers. Competition is a little tough for a good-lookin' boy from Modesto. But, you gotta dream."

Vito Fontana (July 20 column) discovered drugs later in life than most -- at 45 -- and sank into addiction for nearly 17 years. Finally, after being jailed after a traffic stop in 1999, he entered the Stanislaus County Superior Court's Drug Court program and has been clean since 2000.

Now 70, he's been volunteering for the American Red Cross' disaster relief efforts, and in September went to Louisiana to work in the Hurricane Gustav cleanup.