But not many people are like Chad Bullock, who just won a Teen Choice Award and a $100,000 grant for his efforts to get people to stop smoking. Johansson presented the 19-year-old Durham native with the award at the celebrity-packed show in Los Angeles two weeks ago.

"I've done a lot of cool things and met really great people," Bullock says. "But meeting her has been maybe my favorite memory."

Bullock, who attended both Durham School of the Arts and Middle College High School in Durham, has spent the past five years traveling around the state and country -- all in the hopes, he says, of getting people to quit smoking and start improving their health.

His interest in tobacco started in civics class at the Durham School of the Arts. He remembers sitting by the window, learning about policymaking, while the pungent scent of tobacco wafted over from the old warehouses across the street. The odor always bothered him.

"There would be a breeze, and then our whole classroom would smell like tobacco," he recalls.

But his mission is also personal. Bullock's great-grandfather died from a smoking-related disease, and he vividly remembers times in his childhood when he would hide his grandmother's cigarettes.

"I would always say 'Grandma, smoking is going to kill you' and just annoy her so bad," he says.

Teaching tobacco's ills

But he was still a regular teenager, enjoying music, acting, photography and playing with his parakeet, Kalieka. It wasn't until he saw an ad for a youth program at school that he thought maybe he could do a little more with his time outside of class.

Bullock and his older sister signed up to join Question Why, a program in which teens would travel across the state enlightening other students on the ills of tobacco and training them to be leaders in their communities.

Bronwyn Lucas, executive director of Youth Empowered Solutions, which sponsors Question Why, remembers Bullock as shy and unsure of himself when he first started working. She doesn't see any of that now.

Five years later, he has developed confidence and an identity, she says.

"He could always work a room," she says. People began to notice, and Bullock began to get invitations to speak from groups nationwide. He joined the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Tobacco Reality Unfiltered and the truth campaign.

"He's positive and passionate, but not earnest or Pollyanna about it," says Nancy Lublin, CEO of Dosomething.org, a youth activism site that sponsors the Teen Choice Award.

A tall order in Durham

It's a lofty goal to get a town with Durham's tobacco history to stop smoking. The community, as well as Duke University, was fueled by tobacco money. But then, Bullock and his team of activists were responsible for getting the Durham Bulls ballpark to go smoke-free two years ago.

"It's very ironic that the Durham Bulls ballpark in the historic tobacco district is smoke-free," he admits. "But we saw these kids hanging around the mascot and their parents smoking all around them, and there was something wrong about that."

Bullock met with George Habel, then the Bulls general manager, who was willing to take a chance on changing park rules and allowed the students to survey ballpark visitors about a change in tobacco policy.

"Thousands of fans go to those games, but even smokers were OK with it going smoke-free," Bullock says. Secondhand smoke is just as dangerous as smoking, he adds, and almost 70 percent of smokers wish they could quit, one of the many facts and statistics he has at the ready after years of speeches.

Next page >

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.