Officer Ken Hammond, 33, of the Ogden, Utah police department decided to celebrate this past Valentine’s Day with his wife, Sarita, a little early. Hammond and his wife had recently married and she was now expecting the couple’s first child. Hammond had been a police officer for 6 years in Ogden, one of the largest cities in Utah known for the Osmond family and the several movies filmed on location including Three O’Clock High, filmed in Ogden High School; however, he still couldn’t have expected the kind of day he was about to have.  After finishing dessert at the Rodizio Grill, a Brazilian steak house located at the Trolley Square mall in nearby Salt Lake City, Hammond sat on the bench outside the restaurant on the second level of the mall, waiting for his wife. Suddenly shots rang out followed by screams. “I looked up a little bit further off to my right. I noticed that there was a man with a shotgun,” Hammond later recalled.

Hammond ran to his wife and told her, “You need to leave. Go, go back to the restaurant, call 9-1-1 and lock it down.” He then shouted the same to other visitors in the mall. “I’m just yelling, ‘Ogden City Police, OPD, get down, get down, get back, get back.’” Hammond then dropped to the ground as the man with the gun, later identified as 18-year-old Sulejmen Talovic, passed by on the level below. Hammond may not have been expecting trouble, but his instincts as a law enforcement officer kicked into high gear. Armed with only his Kimber pistol and wearing jeans and a t-shirt, Hammond set out after Talovic. Unknown to Hammond, Talovic, who was armed with a .38 caliber pistol, a shotgun, and a backpack full of ammo, had just shot nine people in his bloody rampage, two immediately after exiting his car in the parking lot. Witnesses would later describe Talovic’s face as eerily calm as he pumped shots into innocent shoppers and reloaded.

Hammond caught up with Talovic and cornered him. After he took position behind a brick pillar, Hammond yelled to the gunman who immediately fired on the officer.  Although Hammond had had his share of frightening experiences, “I’ve been in situations before where I’ve had to chase a guy who was pointing a gun at me,” this was the first time he had been fired upon. Hammond kept his wits about him and returned fire, preventing Talovic from continuing his massacre. The two exchanged shots until local police units arrived and joined the fray. By the time it ended, Talovic was dead, along with five of his victims.

Killed were Teresa Ellis, 29, and Brad Frantz, 24, Kirsten Hinkley, 15, Vanessa Quinn, 29, and Jeffrey Walker, 52. Walker’s son, Alan Jeffrey Walker, 16, and Hinkley’s mother, Carolyn Tuft, 44, were also wounded in the attack. Other victims also include Stacy Hanson, 53, and Shawn Munns, 34. As terrible as the violence was, it could have been a lot worse without Hammond’s rapid response. “There is no question that his quick actions saved the lives of numerous other people,” said Salt Lake City police chief, Chris Burbank. Hammond’s own police chief, Jon Geiner, backs up this statement as well. “Thank goodness he was there. You don’t want to ever say it’s good we were there and killed somebody, but it’s probably good someone was there.”

Hammond will be honored along with the other responding officers in a special ceremony tomorrow at 10am, starting at Salt Lake City, Utah’s Senate house. Through it all, Hammond has been quick to shrug off titles like hero. “I don’t necessarily feel like a hero. I feel like I was there and I did what I needed to do. Any other police officer would have done the same thing had they been in the same situation. I just happened to be the one that was there.”

"It’s one thing to come out here and strap this uniform on and be expecting it, be prepared for that. I’m on a Valentine’s date with my wife. I’m not ready for that. I’m not expecting that.”
Officer Ken Hammond

On Tuesday, January 2, 2007, at noon, Wesley Autrey was waiting for a subway train with his two young daughters, when his life changed forever.  Autrey is a construction worker who was accompaniying his daughters to meet their mother while he headed off to work for the night.  However, something caught his attention about one of the other commuters waiting on the platform.  Suddenly, the man collapsed and began to shake violently.

As the man, identified as 20 year-old Cameron Hellopter, a New York Film Institute student from Littleton, MA, convulsed on the platform, Autrey ran to get help.  With help alerted, Autrey returned and quickly borrowed a pen from another witness and forced it into Hellopter’s mouth to prevent him from choking.  Hellopter appeared to recover from his seizure and even began to stand, holding on to one of the station’s pillars when he collapsed again.  This time, Hellopter fell backward off the platform where he landed in the gutter between the tracks.

While Hellopter’s arms and legs continued to spasm, a train could be seen approaching the station.  Autrey knew he had to act quickly, so he jumped down onto the tracks and attempted to pull Hellopter from the pit.  However, the young man’s size and the continued seizures made it difficult for Autrey.  “The train is getting closer.  I tried again.  The driver was honking the horn for us to get out of the way, but it was coming so fast.” Autrey says of the harrowing experience.  Seeing the futility in continuing to pull Hellopter from the pit, Autrey had to make a difficult decision.  At least it would be a difficult decision for most people, but Autrey says, “I think that’s in the gut.  You have to decide in that split second.”

Autrey climbed into the pit on top of Hellopter, shielding him with his body.  He wrapped his arms and legs around Hellopter’s to prevent the spasms from shaking them onto the tracks.  The pit itself is only a foot deep, so the two men squeezed together as the train plowed into the station with the conductor hopelessly engaging the brakes.  As the train passed over them, a piece grazed Autrey’s hat before managing to stop.  In all, two train cars had passed over the two men.

The panicked crowd watched in horror and Autrey’s girls sobbed, but then there was a shout.  Autrey yelled from below for someone to let his girls know he was fine.  “I’m their father. Let them know their father’s OK, and let everyone know that man is OK.” Both men escaped virtually unscathed with only a few bumps and bruises.  Hellopter has fully recovered from his seizure after being taken to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Wesley Autrey saved Cameron Hellopter’s life without a moment’s hesitation and did so at great peril to himself.  I’m sure he may have preferred to do so without the fright his daughter’s received, but the result was that they will have a memory of their father as a great hero for their lives.  It will be a story to tell their children and their children’s children.  How great a gift is that?

"I don’t feel like I did something spectacular. I just saw someone who needed help.”
Wesley Autrey

In 1989, Wendy Kopp began what, for her, would have been an improbable journey.  Raised in University Park, Texas, an affluent suburb five miles north of Dallas, home to Southern Methodist University, Kopp had no experience with the inner-city school systems her work would some day affect. Dan Porter, a classmate of Kopp’s from Princeton where she received her bachelor’s degree, majoring in public policy, had once said, “If you had asked me who was going to spend 10 years saving the children, of everybody at Princeton, Wendy would have been close to the bottom.” But, that’s exactly what she had done and continues to do today.

From the beginning, Kopp differed from her other classmates at Princeton. While some may have joined social clubs or environmental groups, Wendy formed a business magazine. She never swears, works hard, sleeps five hours, and rises at 4am. She once tried sleeping on alternating nights to get more time out of the week. She makes lists, lots of lists. She even went so far as to form a strategic plan for her own wedding. However, there’s no slighting Mrs. Kopp’s effectiveness. She gets things done while others are still debating whether to even try. Once she sets her mind to do something, there’s no stopping her.

For her Princeton senior class project, Wendy Kopp proposed to form a national teaching corps. Citing the disparity between the educations received by lower-income families in comparison to her own or that of her peers, Kopp set out to close the gap. She felt that the problem was a lack of good teachers in the communities that need them most. If she could recruit good, young, confident teachers to teach in inner-city schools for a manageable period, together they could make a difference; and so began Teach for America, modeled after the Peace Corps.

Initially, her idea was criticized for being overly ambitious by her senior thesis adviser who went as far as to suggest the idea was “obviously deranged.” However, Kopp used the skills she had honed as president of the campus organization that linked students and business leaders and tapped corporate sponsors. She convinced Morgan Stanley to donate her office space and Mobil Oil Corp. to generously grant her $26,000 to get the plan off the ground. “I realized there’s an incredible amount of money in the world and people who are looking for good things to support. If you just get in the door, you have a good chance of making your idea fly,” explains Kopp.

Properly financed, Kopp next needed to recruit teachers. Here, too, Kopp was urged to scale back her plans. Despite estimations that she would have difficulty finding more than 50 recruits, Kopp set out to hire ten times that many. She felt 500 was the least amount she needed to make a national statement. Kopp would have no problem reaching her goal; over 2,500 graduates applied, including her former classmate Dan Porter who would join her organization in its early stages.

Kopp dismissed initial criticism about her organization, including concern about the recruitment of graduates who had not majored in education, the two-year commitment, the blanket salary policy, and even her autocratic management style. At one point, the staff threatened to quit unless she agreed to make all decisions democratically; Kopp stuck to her guns and nobody quit. She would eventually rework the salary structure to provide a range of salaries, but for the most part, it’s Kopp’s way or the highway. “[She’s] not really that concerned about what the public’s view is, or what tradition requires, or what other people will tell her are the barriers for things that can be done,” says Ian Huschle another of her first employees.

As equally successful as Wendy’s knack for winning over her critics, is her ability to make a difference. Teach for American has been running for more than 16 years, has placed over 14,000 teachers, and currently has 3,500 corps members in over 1,000 schools across the country. They’ve recently expanded to Memphis and existing schools are pleased. Wendy Kopp has done and will continue to do a fantastic job affecting significant changes in the country’s education system; not bad for someone who has never taught a class.

"The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions, but to kindle minds.”
Frederick William Robertson