With the best of intentions, the Pointing the Way Awards were conceived and received.

With the zest of a crusade, at its centennial dinner in 1999, the Anderson Independent-Mail celebrated its history and made history by honoring local leaders with the first of what would become annual leadership awards. I have been to every awards luncheon since, and each one has given me the warm fuzzies.

With the test of time, however, outside a circle of fine citizens, a cool community has snickered.

If cynicism and criticism were coming only from CAVE people (citizens against virtually everything), we could shrug it off. But reasonable people also have questioned and constructively criticized our mission to recognize the best of our best leaders.

How can something so good be so bad?

We have heard complaints that Pointing the Way is by, for and of the elite. May we point the way to ordinary people who have been recognized for doing extraordinary things? Lucille Mayo, Marion Tarrant, Harold Jones, James “Radio” Kennedy, Walter and Mary Kennedy and Sibyl Cochran Jameson are among 35 recipients in the past eight years.

But we have taken the good and bad feedback to heart.

Something so good isn’t good enough.

If the whole community hasn’t embraced the awards, perhaps it’s because we haven’t engaged the whole community.

So beginning today, we are opening up the Pointing the Way process. We want your input.

On Page 6B, you will find a Pointing the Way nomination form. This will run at least twice per week in the next five weeks. We urge you to fill it out and send it to us.

A form also can be found at IndependentMail.com. You can send it electronically.

The deadline is Dec. 7. We hope to be flooded with nominations. Where originally the publisher picked the winners, with input from the editor, the newspaper’s full board of directors now will select the winners, to be announced on Jan. 23, 2008 on our Web site.

Another change: There will be no luncheon. We can involve the entire community in nominations, but we can’t feed everyone, so rather than hurting any feelings, we’ll present the awards another way.

Let me point you toward the criteria that we have established to determine the winners. That criteria is stated on the nomination form:

“Pointing the Way leaders are people who have made an outstanding contribution to the betterment of the lives of others or to a community without personal gain.”

That last part — “without personal gain” — is important. People who direct agencies do a lot of good for the community, but that’s their job. To nominate them, make a case for what they do above and beyond their job.

We love recognizing unsung heroes, and we know you will point us toward people worthy of strong consideration.

Pointing the new way. … Let’s work together.