Butte Man Named to CNN Hero List

Aaron Flint posted on October 23, 2012 11:37 :: 1619 Views

CNN is apparently filming in Butte, Montana later this week.  It’s all part of an effort to profile the founder of Mariah’s Challenge, Leo McCarthy, who was named one of the top 10 CNN Heroes of 2012.  McCarthy’s daughter, Mariah, was killed by an underage drunken driver in 2007, leading him to found Mariah’s Challenge as an effort to curb underage drinking. 

The news of CNN’s arrival in Montana later in the week came during today’s show, as we did a live broadcast from the Sixth Annual Montana Crime Prevention Conference.  One of the folks I caught up with during the show was Sgt. Jim Kilmer with the Butte-Silver Bow Police Department.  Sgt. Kilmer nearly lost his own daughter on that same fateful day back in 2007, and is a co-founder of Mariah’s Challenge.  During our live broadcast, Sgt. Kilmer informed me that CNN will actually be in Butte later this week profiling Mariah’s Challenge founder Leo McCarthy.  He also encouraged everyone here in Montana to go to CNN’s website and vote for Leo as their pick for the top hero of 2012.      

You can vote UP TO 10 TIMES a day.  Click here to vote for Leo, and save the link to continue voting. 

http://heroes.cnn.com/

What did McCarthy have to say when asked by CNN about being named to their Top Ten Hero List of 2012? 

CNN: We’re coming up on the five-year anniversary of Mariah’s death. What does the timing of this honor mean to you?

McCarthy: Surreal, going back to those lonely, sleepless nights after it happened and trying to make sense of this. Stumbling and bumbling about, realizing it’s got to be up to me and my family to try to bring something out of this and always believing about the legacy of love … and seeing it now.

It would have been so easy to build a monument to misery and light the torch of vengeance. … But we decided to go the tough way, the hard way, which is acknowledging we can all be better and we can always bring good out of bad. There is grace in that, and there is deep peace in that.

Click below to watch video of a Q&A with Leo McCarthy and CNN.

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