Man Who Helped Rockton Farmer Among Carnegie Hero Winners

Northern Public Radio | By Jenna Dooley

Published March 30, 2015 at 4:04 PM CDT

In its first award announcement of 2015, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission named 20 recipients of the Carnegie Medal. The medal is given throughout the United States and Canada to those who risk their lives to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the lives of others.

In January 2014, then 20-year-old Michael D. Bates helped save his grandfather, then 78-year-old Roger Bates, from suffocating when he was trapped in a grain bin.

Bates was profiled in aWNIJ story in July 2014 about grain bin safety.

The winners will be formally announced Tuesday.

Jenna Dooley

Jenna Dooley has spent her professional career in public radio. She is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois - Springfield. She returned to Northern Public Radio in DeKalb after several years hosting Morning Edition at WUIS-FM in Springfield. She is a former "Newsfinder of the Year" from the Illinois Associated Press and recipient of NIU's Donald R. Grubb Journalism Alumni Award. She is an active member of the Illinois News Broadcasters Association and an adjunct instructor at NIU.

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