Randall Murphree
AFA Journal editor
October 2007 – Through the years, I’ve stumbled upon more than a few heroes in places where I wasn’t looking for them and certainly didn’t expect to find them. A South Carolina rural roadside, the streets of inner-city Buenos Aries, an Ohio ministry to the homeless, Branson theaters and theme parks and a small Arkansas Christian Church are a few that come to mind.
I’ve written about the men in the first three: Troy Brandt spent hours and charged nothing to repair our broken-down van on SC Hwy 461; Marcelo Robles, an Argentine pastor, ministers to street people and trains pastors to plant new churches; Keith Wasserman, a completed Jew, founded Good Works, offering shelter, job training and hope to the homeless in Ohio. All three exemplify the qualities I believe a real hero has – humility, faith, compassion and perseverance.
More recently, I discovered a couple of families in the glitzy show-biz world in Branson, Missouri, mid-America’s family-friendly entertainment capital. I’d never been to Branson until last year. Now, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and interview numerous entertainment personalities.
Last fall, I talked at length with Tim Haygood, eldest brother in one of Branson’s most popular family stage shows. Tim performs with his six brothers and one sister. They take their Christian faith seriously and he says it has an impact on every decision they make regarding their show. On a more personal level, he was also eager to tell me that he and his wife often act on AFA’s Action Alerts and e-mail campaigns. Heroes all the way.
Just a week ago, AFA staffer Buddy Smith and I were in Branson for a media event at Silver Dollar City. Jack and Pete Herschend still run the family theme park founded by their dad in the 1950s. Herschend Entertainment corporate policy says they will always run their business in a manner consistent with Christian principles. Hero material if ever I’ve seen it.
We went to the Dutton Theater to see Dean and Sheila Dutton perform with six of their children and a gaggle of their 18 grandchildren. After the Duttons’ seven birth children had all married and left the house a few years back, Dean and Sheila didn’t like the empty nest. So they adopted seven children including four siblings from Kazakhstan and two from Russia. When the youngest graduates from high school, Mom and Dad will be in their mid-70s. Heroes? Absolutely!
Just an hour southeast of Branson, we worshipped Sunday morning at First Christian Church in Eureka Springs. Pastor Philip Wilson has taken a beating in the media for his recent outspoken stand for morality in his small city. (See story here.) Eureka Springs is best known for its long-running, highly-acclaimed outdoor drama The Great Passion Play. However, city fathers recently adopted a policy to officially recognize homosexual partnerships, and Pastor Phil was the first local clergyman to raise a dissenting voice. Phil, you’re AFA’s kind of hero.
The list could go on and on.
AFA attracts the media spotlight most often when we’re pointing out the ills in our culture and urging concerned people to take a stand, send an e-mail, write a letter or make a phone call.
But we often write about those whose lives are making a positive difference in our culture. Unfortunately, we rarely get much attention from other media when we’re singing the praises of authentic American heroes whose lives challenge and encourage us. May we all follow their examples of humility, faith, compassion and perseverance. And may we all be somebody’s hero. 
