Nominate The Sun’s 2019 Marylander of the Year

What Marylander had the biggest impact on the state in 2019? The Sun is asking for your nominations for the 2019 Marylander of the Year. Please send them to talkback@baltimoresun.com and include “Marylander of the Year” in the subject line. We’ll announce the finalists in mid-December and a winner before the end of the year. As inspiration, here’s the roster of The Sun’s previous honorees.

The Johns Hopkins president won The Sun’s inaugural award for his “relentless drive, intelligence, vision, institutional ambition, smooth tongue and grasp of the possible.”

Now one of Annapolis’ most effective public interest lobbyists, Mr. DeMarco was in 1988 the essential element in the coalition that won support for landmark restrictions on Saturday Night Specials.

The novelest won the award in the same year that “Breathing Lessons” won the Pulitzer Prize and “The Accidental Tourist” became a hit movie.

Montgomery County attorney Robert Linowes won for the work of a commission he chaired that sought to create a fairer, more equitable state tax system.

The Sun honored Cal Ripken after a season in which he was the All-Star game MVP, American League MVP and Sporting News and AP Player of the Year.

The Sun said of Baltimore’s advocate and helper for the poor, “Others preach the Golden Rule; Bea Gaddy lives it.”

The Sun said the developer “makes people believe. He lends his credibility and contacts and ideas. For lack of a better label, he is called a visionary.”

The Sun honored Kweisi Mfume when he took over leadership of the NAACP. “His whole life seems to have been mapped out for this day.”

The Sun said “Homicide” was so true that “a real fleeing shoplifter ran onto a film location and surrendered to actors, while production executives seeking a site for a crack house stumbled into a real crack house.”

The Sun recognized the three people who made possible a landmark agreement to provide higher funding for Baltimore schools.

The Sun said the attorney could easily be Marylander of the Decade. “Few have given such philanthropy, and very few have tried to exercise such influence.”

UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski III earned the 1999 award for “nurturing excellence in mathematics and science among African-American men.”

In 2000, The Sun honored developer Bill Struever because he “adopts buildings that others have discarded, neglected or marked for destruction. He sees what they want to be … and with single-minded resolve, he helps them fulfill that potential.”

The Ravens won the Super Bowl and (collectively) Marylander of the Year in 2001.

“Hairspray” became a Broadway smash, and John Waters became Marylander of the Year.

The Sun resumed honoring Marylanders of the Year in 2012 with the Orioles manager who helped bring the team back to the postseason for the first time in 15 years.

The NAACP head was instrumental in Maryland’s decisions to abolish the death penalty and enact marriage equality.

The Republican’s improbable win in the governor’s race “upended our notions about political campaigns and shook up the state’s power structure in a way that will have lasting impact.”

The longest-serving woman in Congress “has always had an uncommonly good ear for what the common man and woman thinks and an incomparably loud voice for repeating it to the powers-that-be.”

The Under Armour CEO was recognized for his bold plan to remake Port Covington - and his willingness to work with the community on job opportunities and affordable housing.

The co-founder of the CeaseFire movement sparked hope that we can make Baltimore a less violent, more peaceful place.

After its newsroom was the site of the deadliest attack on American journalists in history, staff “put out a damn paper” the next day, demonstrating bravery, defiance and the importance of journalism to a community.