NEW YORK'S LIBERTY MEDAL WINNERS 2004

October 8, 2004 --

 

* Ambassador

JIM ROSENBLUM: A NASCAR racing-team owner whose "FDNY Racing Team" of four Chevy trucks has raised more than $100,000 for the UFA Widows' and Children's Fund and the Bravest Fund.

* New York's Bravest

JAMES MILLS: The firefighter crawled 80 feet in toxic black smoke to help rescue a comrade who was trapped and unconscious in the basement of a commercial building in Brooklyn where smoke-eaters were battling a blaze.

* Freedom

ADRIAN FLANNELLY: The Irish radio talk-show host helped guide thousands of immigrants from his native Ireland through the complexities of getting green cards and along the path of citizenship.

* Community

GEORGE MCDONALD: The founder and president of the Doe Fund, which provides services to homeless people, McDonald also formed Ready, Willing and Able, the blueuniformed army of formerly homeless and disadvantaged community street-cleaners.

* Educator

STEVE POUCHIE: A music teacher at Walton HS in The Bronx, the Latin-jazz musician believes that inner city students who learn to play the piano will do better in their other studies.

* Courage

MARIE FRAWLEY: The veteran police officer donated a kidney to a perfect stranger after reading about the woman’s desperate need for a transplant in a church newsletter.

* Young Heart

ARABELLA UHRY: The 8-year-old third-grader, a volunteer with the nonprofit Tumbleweed Foundation, which provides emotional support for children with terminal illnesses, corresponds with two ailing young girls.

* Leadership

PAUL NICHOLLS: Wanting to thank the city where his cancer was diagnosed and treated, hecreated Team Continuum, a group of cancer patients and their doctors, nurses and supporters who run in the NYC Marathon and raise funds to help cancer patients.

* New York's Finest

MARIBETH DIAZ: The rookie cop coolly confronted an emotionally disturbed man after he allegedly stabbed two people sitting on a bench in Herald Square Park and two others who tried to stop him. She ordered him to drop the knife and, when he allegedly refused and moved toward her, she fired once, hitting him in the hip.

* Lifetime Achievement

MARIA CAMPANELLA - While driving around her Brooklyn neighborhood selling sweet treats, she uses her truck — on which the words “The Ice Cream Girl Maria’’ are painted — to help her neighbors, from packing it with toys for needy kids to using it as an office to coordinate charity events.