Goodness Is Recognized Among Winners of America’s Awards

Chuck and Penny Hauer, a San Diego couple who have adopted 35 physically and mentally disabled children over the last 20 years, will be among 10 people honored today with America’s Awards.

Nicknamed the “Nobel Prizes for Goodness,” the awards were created in 1990 by the late minister Norman Vincent Peale to honor unsung American heroes.

Winners are nominated by the public and chosen by a committee that includes retired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Colin L. Powell, former Sen. Bill Bradley, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, and religious broadcasting executive Pat Robertson.

The other 1999 winners are:

* Gretchen Buchenholz of New York City, who helps young families with education, housing and employment programs through her Assn. to Benefit Children.

* Terri and Bruce Lippert of Council Bluffs, Iowa, who have acted as foster parents to about 120 children over the last decade.

* Rachel and Rick Sparkowich of Portsmouth, N.H., who have given about $7 million in clothing, furniture and food to the poor over the last two decades through their ministry.

* Cordelia Taylor of Milwaukee, who founded and runs the Family House, which houses and cares for frail seniors.

* Lyndale and Ellyn Morrow-Yazel of Colorado Springs, Colo. Lyndale created an education program for her daughter, Ellyn, who was born with Down syndrome. The program was copied by California state officials. Ellyn later nursed her mother back to health after a spinal cord injury.

This year’s recipients will be honored on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. They will be chauffeured in limousines and given a tour of the White House and a dinner cruise on the Potomac.