Play editor, readers: you pick top news story

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CBC's Terry MacLeod: 'Life flashed before me' (PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

NOW YOU TELL ME... Each year around this time, the Free Press editors who get together each day to decide the top stories of the day start thinking individually about their choices for local news story and newsmaker of the year.

There's still a month or so to go, of course.

But with most of the year behind us I thought it would be interesting for a change if you were to tell us who and what story is most deserving of top newsmaking status in 2009. Then we can compare the readers' choices with the editors'.

So, I'm asking you to nominate your own Manitoba newsmaker and news story. If you can't decide on both, you can also chose to nominate only a newsmaker or only a news story.

After the nominations are in, we'll invite everyone to vote on the most frequently nominated readers' choices.

I'm not going to tip or taint your suggestions by sharing my own or any other candidates' stories.

Here's how to make your nominations: You can email your choices for Manitoba Newsmaker of the Year and/or Manitoba News Story of the Year to me at: gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca.

You can also mail your nominations to: News nominations of the year, Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, Man., R2X 3B6.

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AND NOW ONE MAN'S PERSONAL STORY OF THE YEAR... Over the weekend I chanced upon a three-year-old column that had been stashed away as one of my favourites because it's about one of my favourite people.

"Dying to live," was the headline.

The May 28, 2006 column related the inspiring story of how CBC morning radio host Terry MacLeod had survived and thrived after being diagnosed with inoperable heart disease in 2004.

"It's good in a way to live," Terry said then. "To be told you could die."

Well, Terry thought he was going to die on Remembrance Day.

It was shortly after 4:25 a.m., the usual time a taxi picks him up to go to work every weekday morning.

The Toyota Prius that Terry and the taxi driver were in was travelling along Academy Road, nearing Wellington Crescent, when Terry saw death coming right at them.

Death, disguised as a "little silver Japanese car," had come speeding the wrong way over the bridge from Sherbrook Street and now was about to collide head-on with the taxi.

"I saw my life flash before me," Terry recalled over the phone Monday.

Just in time the taxi driver jerked the wheel to the right.

"The other car passed within a hair's-breadth," Terry said. "It was so close, that I thought, 'Am I dead? Is this what it's like to be dead and think I'm still alive?' "

The morning it happened Terry related the story to his early listeners.

It was too early for me to catch at the time, so I'm not sure he told the rest of the story about the personal perils of travelling to work in the dark of morning.

As Terry said: "It's a dangerous time of day."

For instance there was another time, just a month ago, when he was randomly chased into the CBC building by death disguised as a deranged and bloodied man wielding a baseball bat.

That was another near miss.

Or there were all those other times when he used to be propositioned regularly on his way to work by a transvestite.

I think that's when he gave up bicycling to work and settled on a safer way to get to work. By taxi.

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MEANWHILE, LATER THE SAME MORNING... Terry MacLeod isn't the only one who saw something unforgettable Remembrance Day morning, as this email reports.

"Hi Mr. Sinclair:

"I would like to share with you something my daughter saw on Nov. 11/09 at 11 a.m. A city transit bus stopped right outside her apartment window and the driver got out. He proceeded to bow his head and observe the minute of silence. Once this was done he got back into his bus and continued on his route. I am not mentioning what street it occurred on just in case the driver might get in trouble. I just thought you'd might like to know that the veterans and those still fighting for our freedom are being remembered no matter where a person is at 11 a.m. I know it did my heart good to hear this."

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 24, 2009 B1