Apr 14, 2015 2 min read

A hero is, by definition, an illustrious warrior, someone who has exhibited great courage or a person greatly admired for his or her achievements. The word is too often cast about loosely and given to anyone wearing the uniform of a soldier, firefighter, police officer or sports figure. At the same time, some of those who have shown real courage and achievement throughout a lifetime are not recognized for their very real heroics.

Two men who deserve such recognition were featured on an inside page in Tuesday’s Observer-Reporter: Dr. Dan Lattanzi and the Rev. Harold Knappenberger.

Lattanzi, a South Hills obstetrician-gynecologist, has spent decades leading medical missions to Haiti and, lately, Guyana in South America. The number of lives he has touched, saved and improved must number in the thousands.

Knappenberger served 50 years as a pastor, eight of them at John Wesley United Methodist Church in Washington. In his younger days, he served as a missionary of the Methodist Church in many of the 33 countries he visited.

The 90-year-old pastor will be honored with the Washington NAACP’s 2015 Human Rights Award at its banquet May 1. In paraphrasing the words of John Wesley, Knappenberger said, “Do all the good you can to all the people you can in all the places you can for as long as you can.”

These are our heroes.