SUPPORTER OF
U.S. TROOPS
Toby Keith
WHEN COUN TRY singer Toby
Keith agreed to do a two-week
USO/Armed Forces Entertain-
ment tour of the Middle East
in 2002, he thought it was a
one-shot nod to his late father,
an Army veteran. He’ s been
back eight more times: “Being
around people who put it on
the line every day is amazing,”
says Keith, 50. He tries to
better soldiers’ everyday lives
as well. During a 2007 trip
to Afghanistan, he saw how
troops in remote areas lived
between “sandbag” walls,
without the comforts of home.
That inspired him to sponsor
the USO2GO program, which
has distributed more than 400
care packages to remote U.S.
bases abroad. In 2009 Keith
received the Distinguished
Service Award from the Military
Officers Association of Ameri-
ca—an honor he says dwarfs
his many music awards. —A.N.
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST
Hilton
Kelley
WHEN HOLLYWOOD STUNTMAN and
actor Hilton Kelley visited Port Arthur,
Texas, for Mardi Gras in 2000, he was appalled by the changes in his once-thriving
hometown: Buildings were boarded
up, unemployment was sky-high, and
cancer rates were 20 percent higher than
in the rest of the state—the result, he
suspected, of the foul air that constantly
belched from the smokestacks of the oil
refineries at the edge of the city. Kelley
decided to move back, and formed the
Community In-Power & Development
Association Inc. (CIDA), training Gulf
Coast citizens to measure toxic-air
levels, storming corporate shareholder
meetings, and, when necessary, suing
the polluters. The payoff? Reduced emissions, health care subsidies at the local
clinic, and a $3.5 million fund for new
businesses. Kelley, 51, takes little credit.
“I believe this is a God-sent mission,” he
explains. “It was a vision that he gave me
that led me home.” —A.N.
