Instead of choosing just one recipient for its annual Dr. C. John Ritter Humanitarian Award, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. City Wide Celebration Committee this year six individuals and organizations as honorees.

Cape Central Junior High School Principal Roy Merideth and Cape Girardeau Board of Education; slain Cape Girardeau carpenter Charles Mosley; local church group leader Xavier Bland; and former Cape Central Middle School Principal Frank Ellis and his wife Sylvia.

Merideth and the school board were honored for their work to give the Boys and Girls Club operating space at the junior high; Mosley for the hours of volunteer carpentry work he did for a local church and others; Bland for helping children in her church and for taking five children from broken homes into her own; and to Frank and Sylvia Ellis for their work with children in the schools and outside the academic setting.

The awards were given out during today's King Humanitarian Luncheon, which started at noon at the Osage Community Centre. The event was one of three today organized by the celebration committee.

Today's events conclude at 4 p.m. with a Youth Gala at West Park Mall. Area school students will give speeches and musical performance honoring King and his legacy.