We live in a culture that celebrates actors and singers and sports stars, and to a lesser degree local celebs like radio and TV personalities, but too often overlook so many of the unsung heroes in society — the people behind the scenes.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not taking anything away from most celebrities who get media attention, unless it’s the celebrity culture type of attention that plays up every breath and burp of socialites like the Kardashians.

It is largely the media — radio, TV, newspapers — who make or break celebrities. I think mainstream journalists mostly get it right, though we do falter at times when members of aforementioned socialite circles come to our town and we fawn over them as if they have descended into our midst from the heavens above. I think editors grudgingly assign reporters to cover Kardashian types because their presence IS news if only because of the many groupies and hangers-on who will be in attendance wherever they go. Where there’s a crowd is often a news story.

But there are a lot of people making far more important contributions to society who get little or no ink at all, and perhaps are just as happy they are not well-known. I’m talking about doctors and nurses who are saving lives, power company linemen and women who restore electricity to areas after storms, and so many others. You get my drift here: there are so many people performing vital and difficult services to mankind whose accomplishments are largely unrecognized on an individual basis.

Or even collectively: how many articles have you read praising the work of individual hydro linemen and women working long shifts in freezing weather to restore power to your home?

It seems unfair sometimes that so-called celebrities who contribute far less to society get so much media attention.

There are so many unsung heroes in this world who are superstars in their fields.

I bet you know plenty of them. In fact, you may very well be one of them.

So today, I salute all the unsung heroes in the world.

And I ask you to do so, and perhaps name some of them below, either individually or collectively.

— Jillian

Photo: Hydro linemen in action. Credit: kiwinky via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND