The Good Guys

My Uncle Bill passed away this week. He was the oldest of nine in my mom's family. He was such a good man, so great, he even got a shout-out in the Topeka paper yesterday. What a good example to me of genuine concern for others.

"We lost another one of the good guys recently. Bill McCarter’s obituary noted he had worked for the city’s engineering division for 59 years when he retired in 2010. That’s impressive, but it isn’t the first thing I think of when I think of Bill. Bill was the kind of public employee who gives bureaucrats a good name. He truly was working to help people.

That wasn’t just my experience in dealing with him as a news reporter. I often heard anecdotes from people he had helped.

In 1985, then-city engineer Earl Honigs nominated Bill for an Award of Merit from the American Public Works Association. He won.

A key factor in winning the award was the way he dealt with a woman who was upset because a project to install a sewer line across her property had destroyed several rows of irises. The city had no legal obligation to restore her flowers, but all Bill needed to know was that a citizen was unhappy. He knew of another project in the city that was causing the removal of some irises the owners didn't want replaced. He spent a Saturday — on his own time — salvaging those irises and planting them in the garden of the woman who had lost her flowers."

Source: http://cjonline.com/news/2012-03-06/mike-hall-newsroom-ahead-its-time