Five letter carriers whose courage, quick wits and compassion are emblematic of the best elements of the American character were honored as NALC’s 2001 Heroes of the Year in a ceremony in Washington last month.

The event was held just one day after the terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon and when NALC President Vince Sombrotto came to the podium he asked the audience to join in a silent prayer for the victims. The union leader then opened the proceedings with a declaration of resolve.

“Today, while so many other events are being delayed or canceled, I believe it’s important for us to honor these heroic, devoted union brothers and sisters,” he said.

“Because they are in every city and town, in every neighborhood, six days a week, letter carriers are often the front line of safety for Americans of every age and every station in life,” he noted.

“And just as America’s letter carriers have the strength to deliver through adversity every day, we are confident that our nation will weather this test of our national character.”

More than 120 people, including NALC’s resident national officers, leaders from the postal community and political dignitaries attended the awards luncheon at a Washington hotel just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol grounds.

The 2001 Heroes of the Year, selected by a panel of independent judges, are:

Joseph Cortez, New York, NY Br. 36, National Hero of the Year
Richard F. Bilski, Cleveland, OH Br. 40, National Humanitarian of the Year
Jeanette Cesanek, Lehigh Valley, PA Br. 274, Eastern Region Hero of the Year
Rita Askins, St. Louis, MO Br. 343, Central Region Hero of the Year
Christopher Daniels, Carmichael, CA Br. 4494, Western Region Hero of the Year

Among those attending the awards ceremony was Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who came especially to honor Sister Cesanek, his constituent, but gave moving praise to all the heroes and commended the NALC for going ahead with the program.

“This is a day of tremendous grief and sadness, but it is also a day of joy because we can give thanks for these men and women who show us the good in the human spirit even when we are suffering from the bad,” Toomey said. “I’m grateful to the heroes on this stage for lifting up our spirits when they badly need a lift.”

In brief remarks, Rep. Ben Gilman of New York, a longtime friend of the NALC, said, “It’s these courageous heroes who are symbolic of the great American spirit.” Comparing NALC members to the valiant firefighters, police and rescue workers at the disaster sites, Gilman declared, “We’re proud of all the letter carriers.”

Postmaster General Jack Potter, accompanied by other top USPS officials, also attended the program, as did Postal Supervisors President Vince Palladino, National League of Postmasters President Joe Cinadr, and Secretary-Treasurer Dale Goff of the National Association of Postmasters of the United States.

The judges for this year’s honors were Jordan Biscardo, AFL-CIO Senior Community Services Liaison, United Way of America; Director Shelby Hallmark of the Dept. of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs; and Chief Robert Allwang of the Montgomery County, MD Department of Fire and Rescue Services.

The heroes were selected from letter carriers whose deeds were reported in the Postal Record between July 2000 and June 2001. The judges declined to present a Branch Service Award this year. Although many branches engaged in admirable community service programs, very few were reported to the magazine over the contest year. Branch officers are strongly encouraged to contact The Postal Record at NALC Headquarters with reports and photographs of local union charitable projects, as well as reports of individual member’s activities and heroic efforts for inclusion in the Proud to Serve section.

National Hero of the Year:
Joseph Cortez
New York, NY Branch 36

Left: Joe Cortez shows his mother and sister the award certificate naming him NALC Hero of the Year.

As he strode down an East Harlem sidewalk on his way home in the twilight of a mid-October evening, New York letter carrier Joseph Cortez’s thoughts were probably drifting toward the approaching weekend. But the thumping crash of a van slamming into a four-door sedan at the intersection just ahead cut short any idle reverie.

As the 32-year-old letter carrier sprinted the half-block to the corner of 106th St. and First Ave. in Manhattan, the van driver and his passenger bailed out and fled the scene. But to Cortez’s horror, he saw two children strapped in the back seat of the mangled car, which was smoking and looked ready to explode in flames. Their father was pinned in the front seat by the wreckage.

Cortez ran to the vehicle, smashed out the passenger-side windows and managed to unlock the doors. Following his lead, others soon joined the rescue. One man pulled the kids from the car as Cortez tried to free their father and others used a fire extinguisher to knock down the threat of a gasoline explosion.

For his decisive and fearless leadership in the face of a life-threatening situation and his willingness to place the welfare of two helpless children above his own safety, Joseph Cortez of New York, NY Branch 36 was named NALC’s National Hero of the Year for 2001.

In the moments after the Ford Aerostar van slammed into the Buick sedan, the people who had gathered last October 13 in the parking lot of a co-op apartment complex “were just standing there, not doing anything,” said Cortez, who was walking home after a day’s work at New York’s East Side Parcel Post Annex.

As he raced to the intersection, “Somebody said, ‘Stay away, it’s going to blow!’ The car was smoking and it looked like it was ready to go on fire, but when I saw the kids I started screaming that they had to do something to get them out.”

Grabbing a crowbar from one of the men standing around the cars in the parking lot, Cortez rushed to the smoldering wreckage, where two children ages five and two were buckled into the back seat. Their gravely injured father was pinned in a tangle of twisted metal behind the steering wheel. The four-year letter carrier began smashing the windows so he could unlock the doors.

“I managed to break one in. When I started on the other, the crowbar slipped out of my hand and just sailed right through” into the car. Despite cuts on his hands and arms, he managed to punch out the glass and open the back door.

By this time others inspired by his example were joining the rescue effort. “You could say I initiated the action, but then it became a community thing,” Cortez said. “Some people had come up and were tossing cups of water on the car where it was smoking, but I yelled across the street to a gas station for somebody to bring a fire extinguisher.” Another man took charge of unbuckling the children and pulling them from the car while Cortez turned his attention to trying to get their father out of the wreckage.

Sadly, the man was too severely pinned and it took a fire crew with special equipment to extract him. The injured driver died later at the hospital. The children, however, were spared physical harm, thanks in large measure to the courageous letter carrier’s quick response.

The van driver and passenger were apprehended later and charged and the district attorney contacted Cortez about potentially serving as a witness. “I was willing to,” he said, “but I never really got a look at them—I couldn’t pick them out of a line-up.”

Cortez, whose son is 14 and daughter 6, said that fact may have triggered his rapid response. “God forbid my kids were trapped there,” he said. “I hope someone would step up to the plate.”

Two children caught in a death trap on a chilly Friday the 13th can count their blessings that Joseph Cortez was ready to step up when fate called him up to bat.

Eastern Region Hero of the Year:
Jeanette Cesanek
Lehigh Valley, PA Branch 274

Right: Rep. Pat Toomey (l.) of Pennsylvania, who
attended the ceremony to honor constituent Jeanette Cesanek, gave moving praise to all the heroes. With Cesanek is President Sombrotto.

Jeanette Cesanek remembers that a lot of people were at home around noon last August 19 as she delivered mail to a string of aging, two-story frame row houses. After two years on the route in her hometown of Northampton, PA, the letter carrier had a good sense of the rhythm of life on Stewart Street, but this summer Saturday would not be routine.

“I heard a little girl scream ‘Fire!’ It really was a shriek,” Cesanek said. “I turned and saw the flames and thought, Oh my God!” Without hesitation, the 26-year-old carrier shouted for a neighbor to call 911 and handed her mailbag to the alert young girl. She bolted toward the burning home just as an air conditioner unit popped out of a second story window with a burst of flames and crashed to the ground.

Only a couple minutes before she had handed a young boy at the door his grandmother’s mail. Dashing inside, Cesanek called out to the elderly resident. With smoke cascading down the stairway, the letter carrier found the infirm woman in her first-floor room, struggling up from a chair beside her hospital-style bed.

With the youngster following close behind, she led the pair to safety, then sprinted from house to house, pounding on doors to alert other residents.

For her swift and selfless reaction in rescuing her most vulnerable patrons from imminent danger, then coolly ensuring the safety of even more, Jeanette A. Cesanek of Allentown, PA Branch 274 was named NALC’s Eastern Region Hero of the Year for 2001.

“I should have been scared when I went up to that house, especially after that air conditioner fell out,” said Cesanek, a seven-year letter carrier. “But I knew the family. I knew they’d probably need my help to get out.”

When she reached the porch, the front door was open so she knocked loudly on the screen door, called out “Mrs. Holderman, are you in there?” and raced inside.

“The smoke was rolling down the stairs. I turned the corner and saw her trying to get out of her chair beside her bed and said, ‘You’ve got to get out of here now. The place is on fire.’”

Cesanek said her biggest worry was that the grandson would be frightened by her sudden appearance, not understand the danger and run back into the house. However, the child’s confidence in the letter carrier’s friendly nature won out. “He knew me from my talking to him and being around the neighborhood, so he followed us out,” she said.

With the woman and child out of harm’s way, the letter carrier quickly went door-to-door to alert her other patrons to the danger—there were occupants in eight of the 10 houses in the row, which shared a common roof. The fire ultimately damaged all 10 homes and displaced 17 people, but thanks to Cesanek no one was injured.

Once firefighters arrived, the letter carrier resumed her rounds as though nothing had happened.
In a local newspaper interview after her NALC award was announced, Cesanek recalled a childhood incident in which her father was injured in a farming accident and how neighbors rushed to his aid. “I remember how everyone came to our farm when my Dad needed them most. I really believe they saved his life, “ she said. “When I went into that house, I only did what I believe others would do for me.”

Elaborating for The Postal Record, Cesanek insisted, “I don’t think it was very heroic. It was just something I’d do for anyone at any time.”

Central Region Hero of the Year:
Rita Askins
St. Louis, MO Branch 343

Left: Congratulating Rita Askins on being named Central Region Hero are President Sombrotto (r.) and St. Louis Branch 343 President Keith Gentry.

When Rita Askins saw the frisky terrier running toward 8-year-old Tommy Hahs as he got off the school bus, she thought the animal’s enthusiasm was a warm welcome-home for a young master. But the September scene turned horrifying when the dog viciously attacked the youngster, tearing at his face and throat.

Askins, a letter carrier in the St. Louis suburb of Arnold, MO, was making a collection run when the incident unfolded before her. “It jumped up and latched onto his cheek. I could hear the boy scream,” she said.

Without a second thought, Askins pulled over, raced across the street—“it was about the distance from home to second base”—and grabbed the beast.

“The dog was biting and pulling and tearing. He was a little terrier, only about 20 pounds, but boy! was he mean,” she said.

Grabbing the animal’s back, the carrier managed to wrestle it off the boy not once but twice “and drop-kicked it. I told Tommy to run.” Fending off the frantic dog, she guarded the child’s escape to his grandmother’s nearby house, then raced inside herself, where she called authorities and tended the boy’s wounds.

For her fearless intervention to disrupt what could have been a severely disfiguring or deadly attack on a defenseless child, Rita B. Askins of St. Louis Branch 343 was named NALC’s Central Region Hero of the Year for 2001.

Askins said that her “motherly instinct” took over when she saw young Tommy being mauled—the youngest of her four children is an 8-year-old daughter.

“I saw the dog earlier, when I was going the other way, running across the street, acting wild. I thought it was chasing a rabbit,” she said. But when it jumped the boy she acted instantly. “I slammed on the brakes and jumped out. I didn’t even grab my Mace.”

As she approached the scene grew more horrific. “He bit into Tommy’s cheek—you know how soft that is—and his mouth was just gaping open” as the vicious beast hung on.

The letter carrier “grabbed the dog, but he was wriggling and squirming and I had a hard time keeping a hold on him. I couldn’t pull it off at first, my hands slipped off. But I finally managed to grab him and drop-kick him.” The animal was not deterred—it attacked again. “It ripped into him and I kicked it again.”

Once the boy and letter carrier reached safety, she called 911, then set about cleaning his wounds. “He was covered with blood and I had blood and dog hair under my fingernails,” Askins said.

Paramedics later looked the boy over and he received several stitches at the hospital but made a full recovery.

After the ambulance and animal control officers arrived, Askins went back across the street to check with neighbors gathered near her vehicle. It turned out the beast had retreated to its owner’s adjacent yard behind a four-foot fence, but officers couldn’t enter the private property to seize it.

At that point Askins climbed into her vehicle to resume her rounds and just as she closed the door the dog—apparently spotting his nemesis—made a dramatic reappearance.

“It came flying over the fence and jumped right into the door window,” the 39-year-old carrier said. “It was quite a shock. I’m glad the window was closed!” Stunned and no longer on protected turf, the animal was nabbed. It was later destroyed with the owner’s consent.

Rita Askins, who “loves dogs” and currently has a golden retriever named Annie, was quick to act but is reluctant to accept the label hero. “I think any good parent would do the same,” she said. “I didn’t think, I just did what I was supposed to do. We need to look after each other. That’s why we’re here.”

Western Region Hero of the Year:
Christopher Daniels
Carmichael, CA Branch 4494

Right: NALC officers and fellow Californians Executive V.P. Bill Young (r.) and Director of Health Benefits Tom Young pose with Western Hero Chris Daniels and his wife Sharon.

Chris Daniels had finished delivering a loop on Edgerton Way and was heading back toward his vehicle when some people standing across the street caught his eye.

“I saw this woman throw her arms up in the air like she was yelling ‘Oh no,’” he said. “I looked where she was waving and saw a car rolling down the drive, straight toward a kid on the sidewalk.”

In an instant, the carrier made his move, racing across the street as the car knocked the boy down and the right rear tire rolled over his chest. As the front wheel bore down on the child’s head, Daniels lunged, wedging his foot under the tire.

The wiry letter carrier then thrust his arms into the wheel well and grabbed the tire, halting the massive machine just millimeters from the 5-year-old’s throat.

For his lightning fast and daring response to a perilous situation that threatened the life of a child, Christopher S. Daniels of Carmichael, CA Branch 4494 was named NALC’s Western Region Hero of the Year for 2001.

The 30-year-old Daniels had dropped off mail at the house in the Sacramento suburb only a few minutes earlier and no one was home, so he knew the family had just returned from an outing. In the hubbub of arrival home, the driver apparently had left the vehicle out of gear and failed to set the brake.

The 20-foot driveway had “a pretty good pitch” and the car—a Nissan Maxima—was gathering speed as it rolled, but fortunately its open driver’s door scraped against a VW Golf also parked there. “That slowed it down some,” he said, “but it was going fast enough the door folded around against the fender and it sped up again.” By that time, though, Daniels was on top of the action.

“The back bumper hit the kid in the chest and flattened him,” Daniels said, “then I saw his head rolling toward the front tire” as the undercarriage tumbled the child’s body.

With cat-like quickness, Daniels decided he had only one tool to stop the thousands of pounds of metal—his own body.

“I stuck my foot under the tire to stop it and reached down to grab at the tire,” he said. His face slammed into the side panel by the wheel well—“it felt like somebody punched me”—as he literally wrestled the car to a stop a fraction of an inch from the boy’s throat.

As the NALC member strained, the parents pulled the child from under the vehicle and someone put the car into “park.” When Daniels released his grip, “it rolled back that little bit, you know, like they always do? That would have been enough to get him.”

Daniels pulled his cell phone from his belt and despite the protests of the boy’s father summoned an ambulance. “He hadn’t seen what happened—he didn’t know the back wheel had run him over,” the letter carrier said. The family—newly arrived in the neighborhood—did not speak much English, which compounded the confusion.

The youngster was treated for a broken arm and cuts and bruises. The letter carrier was essentially unscathed, except “I felt like I’d worked out for about 400 hours,” he recalled with a chuckle.

Daniels, a carrier for about a year and a half, had been on the job only about seven months when he saved the youngster, but he’s no stranger to serious action. A 10-year Army veteran, he attained the rank of sergeant and his service included two tours in the war- ravaged Balkans.

Daniels said the events of last January 16 deepened his relationship with his 9-year-old son, but he deflects talk of “heroism,” saying, “Of all the letter carriers who do really heroic things who could have been chosen, well, I’m shocked it happened to me.”

When a child is in danger, he explained, “Your instincts just take over. That’s the way most people would react.”

National Humanitarian of the Year:
Richard Bilski
Cleveland, OH Branch 40

Left: Postmaster General Jack Potter stoops to greet Rich Bilski’s son Ricky as the Humanitarian of the Year and President Sombrotto (c.) enjoy the reaction.

If this is October, it must be time for Rich Bilski to get busy collecting “Coats for Kids” and making plans for the holiday “Angel Trees.” After all, he doesn’t really need to worry about lining up Thanksgiving Dinner for a couple thousand of his hungriest friends and neighbors for another few weeks.

But just to be on the safe side, he’s going to send out the fliers for “Rich’s Turkeys” in the next few days and get in touch with his friends at the St. Augustine’s soup kitchen.

Sound like a lot of projects? For 16-year letter carrier Bilski, that is only a seasonal sampling of the year-round ways he invests a seemingly endless supply of enthusiasm into easing the plight of others.

“Some of my friends tell me I’m crazy, that I do too much,” the 47-year-old carrier and union activist said of the hundreds of hours of personal time—and personal resources—that he gives freely each year. “But there are a lot of people out there who need help.”

In addition, he is a leader in his local union’s community projects, coordinating the NALC Food Drive and MDA fund-raising for the 3,700-member Cleveland, OH Branch 40. He describes himself as “the guy who gets up at the meetings and is always pushing for volunteers or money for something,” but he understands the limits others feel.

“I don’t expect everyone to have the fire and passion that I have,” he said simply, “but I expect them to at least care.”

For his leadership by example and singular commitment to the welfare of others, Richard F. Bilski of Cleveland Br. 40 was named NALC’s National Humanitarian of the Year for 2001.

A simple recitation of Rich Bilski’s volunteer activities begins to sound like a laundry list. In addition to being shop steward for his Westlake Station and branch food drive and MDA coordinator, he is a tireless promoter of the Combined Federal Campaign, not only touring stations but also checking off more than $1,000 a year for the United Way. He helps set up the annual Angel Tree program throughout the Branch 40 area, matching children’s Christmas wishes with carriers who can fulfill their dreams.

“I collect blankets for the homeless and I support Toys for Tots every year. I go around collecting toys from people I know and at work, and deliver them to the Marines,” he said. His annual fall “Coats for Kids” campaign, which has yielded thousands of donations, was highlighted in the December 2000 Postal Record.

When it comes to his projects, Bilski has one guiding principle: “If it’s for a child, I can’t say no.”
Rich Bilski is a husband, the father of three boys, a cancer survivor, a Vietnam veteran (he lied about his age to join up), and a one-time carpenter and police officer who finally settled on the letter carrier craft as a career. But what sets him apart is a single-minded moral sense he learned from his mother, who died in 1998.

“My mother had very little of her own, but she was always willing to give it away,” he recalled. While raising her family of five, she began volunteering as a cook at the St. Augustine’s Church soup kitchen in the early 1960s. To this day, her son travels from his suburban home to give his time at the same church.

“Last Thanksgiving we served 1,500 meals—we had both breakfast and lunch, the first time we ever did that,” Bilski said. “I drove the bus, going to the shelters and picking guys up.”

With his mother, he began “Rich’s Turkey’s” almost 20 years ago, collecting funds from family and friends to buy turkeys for holiday meals. A year ago he raised enough to buy more than 400 big birds for hot meal sites and for donation to needy families through food pantries.

This year he is casting a wider net with a mass-mailing to about 700 friends and contacts in the Cleveland business community. In past years, his young sons decorated the fliers individually, coloring turkeys on each solicitation. This year there will be too many, “but I’ll sign every one myself,” the letter carrier said. “That’s important to me, and if that makes a difference to the people you ask to help, I’ll do it. That’s my motto: Whatever works.”