You don’t see them in the spotlight. They don’t give the news conferences or issue the statements.

When there’s a cornerstone laid, their name is not on it. Dedications don’t involve them – unless they planned the event for those who are in the spotlight.

For every MacArthur wading ashore, they’re among the thousands who swarmed the beach – the lifters, the doers, the middle managers making sure the job gets done.

They’re people like Matthew Ruiz, quietly making athletes into better athletes. No one puts a medal around his neck after the race, but would the race have been won without him?

They’re people such as Abdalla Hazaimeh, the toughest – and yet one of the most popular – professors at Ivy Tech. College students are notorious shirkers, but Hazaimeh’s calling card is making them earn a passing grade.

And they’re people such as Deanna DeKoninck: When everyone leaves DeKalb Memorial Hospital for the day to go home to their families, she’s in charge of the place. Lives begin and end every day there, and the staff looks to her for leadership in the wee hours when those with fancier titles have gone for the night.

But today, a bit of the limelight comes their way.

Today, we look at a few of the people that George Bailey once said “do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.”

There are, of course, hundreds of thousands more of them in northeast Indiana, and in every field. So let these few from the local medical and education fields stand in for all those who make a difference without much acknowledgement.

They may not be the ones on the podium, but each deserves recognition. So today we’re borrowing the spotlight from those whose names are on the press releases and those at the helm, and shining it on those below decks, keeping the engine running.

Take Tellis Young at the University of Saint Francis. For students who find themselves adrift in college-level waves, he’s an oar, or a life preserver, or even just a patient ear if that’s what it takes.

It might not sound like much, but often it’s the small gestures that make all the difference.

“We’re hand holders and shoulders to cry on and help them navigate the system,” Young said.

Or take Shauwn Wattley, whose official title at Whitney Young Early Childhood Center may be custodian, but whose work may be better described as snow remover, repairman, doorman and the guy in the cafeteria who takes care of, um, organic messes.

And his favorite job description of all? “Best friend” – the children there love him.

“He does way more than his job title,” one parent said.

That’s the hallmark of the people featured, and of course of other companies and professions.

You may not see their names, but you see their work every day. In fact, people walk all over Jeff Buriff’s work – he’s behind the lush landscape at Grace College. That athletic field that looks so good? It didn’t get that way by accident.

Or their work gives people the ability to walk across a field of grass: Althea Watson’s title at Lutheran Health Network Rehabilitation Hospital may be physical therapist, but she’s also part coach, teacher and cheerleader. When people are rebuilding both their muscles and their lives, she’s found a way to help with both.

So what drives these people? In addition to a passion that pushes them above and beyond their job titles, they seem to have an uncanny ability to lift up those around them – even when the spotlight is finally theirs.

“I can’t say enough good things about my staff,” said Stephen Wolfe, whose team at Cameron Hospital in Angola worked through the night setting up emergency communications after a power surge, and then dug the hospital out a few days later when a winter snowstorm hit.

Even when it’s about them, it’s never about them.

The same goes for IPFW’s Mark Franke, who solves whatever enrollment problems students are having.

“I just happen to be the one who gets to connect the person having the problem and the person who can solve it,” he says.

Unsung? Perhaps – but not today.

dstockman@jg.net