Tar Heel of the Week:Even while working as a full-time personal injury lawyer, raising four boys, serving as a PTSA president, owning part of a thriving music shop, training court-appointed mediators, raising money for the local public radio station and serving -- energet

Tar Heel of the Week:It's a long commute for Sally Messick every week, making the four-hour drive from her home outside Pittsboro to Engelhard in Hyde County on the coast.

Tar Heel of the Week:Darlene Gardner may be a small-business owner, but that's the last way she would identify herself.

Tar Heel of the Week:Jayant Baliga is a man of average size, but he probably has the world's smallest footprint.

Tar Heel of the Week: Jim Culbertson is spending these days packing for his new job as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands -- a diplomatic plum he never thought he would take.

TAR HEEL OF THE WEEK:Mark Philbrick is a man on the move. A nurse by training, he has pulled teeth in the Amazon, held AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa and sold software up and down the Eastern Seaboard. He's hired hundreds of nurses for Duke, entered academia at UNC a

Tar Heel of the Week:Dr. Allan Friedman says operating on Sen. Ted Kennedy, newly diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, provided a rare brush with celebrity. But in most ways, the surgeon says, it was just another day on the job.

Tar Heel of the Week:An enrichment program for Durham public schoolers is in its second year and partners, including three Triangle universities, have entrusted more than $300,000 in the vision of Dan Kimberg.

Tar Heel of the Week: In the days before his baseball team left for the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., UNC-Chapel Hill head coach Mike Fox absorbed a rush of media attention typically experienced by big-name football and basketball coaches.

Tar Heel of the Week:It would be easy to pigeonhole Erich Jarvis in a kind of rags-to-riches tale. He grew up in Harlem. Now he's an award-winning researcher at Duke University.

Tar Heel of the Week: Flicka Bateman remembers a night in 2000 when she couldn't sleep because she had told the neighbors' girls she couldn't help them with their homework all the time.

Tar Heel of the Week: Braima Moiwai teaches a class at Lakeview Elementary School in Durham, using West African drums to teach conflict resolution.

Tar Heel of the Week:Jamie Davis just can't seem to get out of kindergarten. She made it all the way to second grade once, but they sent her back.

Tar Heel of the Week:By his count, Dunne Dittman used to hoist as many as 400 pieces of luggage an hour working for a Southwest Airlines ground crew at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

Tar Heel of the Week:Beth Jacobs' voice mailbox was filled soon after inflammatory comments about American Indians were broadcast over the radio.

Tar Heel of the Week:By day, George Wilson is a criminal justice professor at NCCU. But by night he can often be found working with underprivileged children or with groups that help rehabilitate felons.

Tar Heel of the Week:Mike Wiley knows how easy it is for the mind to distort things.