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Best FM Radio Personality

Joseph Cooper, WLRN-91.3

You're right, Joseph Cooper, he of the somnolent monotone voice, is a strange choice for best FM radio personality. He's no Howard Stern, assuredly. Cooper is a unique force in local talk radio, though. His weekday show, which comes on at 1 p.m., is, um, local. And these days, if it's not about sports or Steve Kane's rantings, it's hard to get homegrown programming in South Florida. Cooper has it in spades. No, he's not the most hard-hitting interviewer, but he does elicit some great information from local authors, journalists, and newsmakers. It might be about eminent-domain issues, a book about the Everglades, or dubiously sealed federal documents, but it's almost always going to have a local angle. And Cooper is more than just a seasoned pro -- he's a rock, as dependable as the turning of the clock and as soothing as a security blanket. If everybody got his daily dose of Cooper, the world would be a better place.

Best FM Radio Station

WLRN-91.3

Let's face it: South Florida has one of the worst radio markets in America. If you want something other than cookie-cutter pop, rock, hip-hop, and country, you need to go satellite. But the publicly financed WLRN remains an oasis from the commercial combine, where you get a whole lot more than the solid NPR stuff. There's Topical Currents with Joseph Cooper, which is one of the last decent local shows left in South Florida. There's South Florida Arts Beat with Ed Bell, where you find out that, good golly, there are intelligent life forms growing in these parts. And the station also offers us interesting music. Every night, there's Evenin' Jazz with Len Pace. On Sunday afternoons, Michael Stock brings us his show, practically titled Folk and Acoustic Music. I know, I know -- you have to suffer those incessant pledge drives. Take the medicine, boys and girls, and throw some money their way every now and then. You won't know how bad you'll miss WLRN until it's gone.

Best TV News Anchor

Belkys Nerey, WSVN (Channel 7) Anchor

Cuban-born newscaster Belkys Nerey performs on Channel 7 at 5, 6 and 10 p.m., and we use perform here for good reason. If local TV news has slid into a hybrid form of journalism and entertainment, at least we can watch someone like Nerey have more fun on-air than others. She laughs her ass off and spurs her on-air comrades to join in. But when she's delivering serious news, Nerey also has the smarts and gravitas to pull it off. Not to mention with a great sense of style. She may not be quite the fashion plate she was while hosting Deco Drive, but when she rocks the designer threads and a boyish haircut, her edgy look makes us think we're seeing the newscaster of the future. And speaking of exotic, we never get tired of hearing everyone else on the set say that unusual name.

Best Sportscaster

Tommy Hutton, FSN Florida Marlins Analyst

Like Johnny Cash, Tommy Hutton has been everywhere. After several years in the minor leagues, where he played in places like Albuquerque and Spokane, his 17-year-career in Major League Baseball took him to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Montreal. But for the past ten years, the former reserve first baseman and emergency outfielder has been firmly embedded in South Florida, where he does color for Marlins games. You don't get any frills with Hutton; he's just a good-natured baseball guy with scads of trivia floating through his head. Want to know who pitched Game 3 for the Houston Astros during the 1980 National League Championship Series? Odds are Hutton could come up with it (Answer: Joe Niekro). That's what you get with Hutton, a guy who's been around -- and paid attention while he was at it.

Best Weathercaster

Don Noe, WPLG (Channel 10)

Don Noe is the doyen of South Florida meteorology. And nowhere is weather forecasting more important than in the Sunshine State, where mysterious underground magnets seem to pull hurricanes toward our peninsula every year for a grueling, six-month showdown with Mother Nature. The chief meteorologist at Local 10, Noe -- an unassuming man with a bald pate and a broad smile -- has a reputation for good-natured humor coupled with down-to-business weather forecasting. It's an art he's crafted over more than three decades in the business. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Noe was a weather forecaster in the Great Lakes Region and Portland, Oregon, before moving to South Florida in 1979. And he's good. Need proof? In a time of television weathercasters with more looks than experience, Noe has proven that knowledge and expertise count. C'mon, when Wilma was bearing down on South Florida, were you really watching what's-her-name on the other channel? Thought so.

Best New Novelist

Heidi Boehringer

While chasing after that elusive first novel, Deerfield Beach author Heidi Boehringer supported herself with every kind of job, from bartending to loan processing. Following graduation from the creative-writing program at the University of Florida -- Gainesville, she went on to write Chasing Jordan, the story of a woman's life crumbled by guilt after accidentally running over her small son. While many of the area's newest novelists use South Florida's gritty and sometimes bizarre milieu for detective mysteries and whodunits, Boehringer mines the banality of the gated communities carved out of the Everglades. "Motherhood sinks to an all-time low in Boehringer's bleak debut, set in the soulless suburbs of South Florida," posits Kirkus Reviews. Despite the subject matter, the novel courses with an unpredictable sense of humor. "This is my kind of novel," Florida writing legend Harry Crews gushed in a blurb. "Whatever Heidi Boehringer writes next, I will read."

Best Gadfly

Asa Boynton

Asa Boynton deserves a spot in the South Florida Community Activist Hall of Fame. In his day job, the tall 59-year-old dresses in a purple gorilla suit and delivers singing telegrams throughout South Florida. Otherwise, he's a one-man gadfly, civic activist, and crime fighter in Hollywood's troubled south side. Ask Hollywood's city commissioners. They'll tell you how Boynton delivers the newspaper to their doorstep every time it has a juicy Hollywood story inside. Or ask the editors of those newspapers. They'll tell you how many letters to the editor they receive from Boynton. And Boynton is as brave as he is tireless. When he takes pictures of suspected drug dealers, he waves and smiles. He calls the cops to scenes of crimes he witnesses, times how long it takes police to arrive, and then distributes that information (often damning) to police brass, newspaper reporters, and other Hollywood activists. He once paraded through crime-ridden neighborhoods in South Hollywood with a sign that read: "Drug Dealers Suck." Even when Boynton is just being kind and generous, he can't get community activism off his mind. During Hurricane Wilma, a scared stray cat wandered to his door. He took in the feline and has since adopted him. He named the cat "Mr. Singley," as in Hollywood Police Officer Nick Singley, who was given a gun and a badge in Hollywood despite a psychological report that said he lacked "maturity and self-control." Boynton can tell you about that story. Just hope another distressed cat doesn't scratch at his door. Boynton's nickname for Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti -- likely the next cat's name -- just isn't fit for print.

Best Lawyer

Khurrum Wahid

Khurrum Wahid has the most unpopular important job in the country. An attorney with offices in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and New York, Wahid represents Muslims in federal court against terrorism charges. Wahid was a federal public defender in Miami when terrorists flew commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center. At that time, people asked him what he thought the U.S. government would do to Muslims in the country. "And I said, I wouldn't worry about it, because my experience has been the government and law enforcement have always been a group that has worked smart, has worked with surgical precision as opposed to the broad brush," Wahid told National Public Radio for a segment on post-9/11 civil liberties. "I was wrong. It turns out they were as reactionary and as emotional as everyone across the country." Now a private attorney, Wahid has handled the cases of dozens of Muslims who have been detained by the government, many without just cause. What's more, Wahid hasn't shied away from controversial cases. Most recently, he represented Abu Ali, who in March was sentenced in Virginia to 30 years in prison for conspiring to assassinate President George W. Bush and aiding al Qaeda. The government's case was built around confessions Ali made in Saudi Arabia. Wahid has maintained that Ali was tortured before making the confessions and is appealing the case. Let's be clear: Wahid's job isn't to defend terrorists; it's to defend civil liberties. And at a time when hundreds of men sit in a military-run jail, with no access to lawyers and no knowledge of the charges against them, the United States needs more fearless attorneys like Wahid.

Best Flack

Stephen Gaskill

If there were more people like Stephen Gaskill, maybe the Democratic Party wouldn't be in such an ugly mess. That's because Gaskill is a smooth media man and political operative who knows the game and how to play it well. A spokesman for Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich during the Clinton administration, Gaskill moved from the Beltway to sunny Fort Lauderdale in 2001 for a change of pace. He dreamed of a slower life as a consultant. No more political rat races. But in 2004, the Dems started calling. Gaskill agreed to become the communications director for former Wilton Manors Mayor Jim Stork's well-funded campaign against Republican U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw. Gaskill gave a professional appearance to Stork's laughable candidacy. It wasn't his fault that Stork flaked out and dropped out of the race 100 yards from the finish line, leaving the Democrats scrambling for a replacement candidate. Besides, after Stork's flameout, Gaskill landed a cherry gig with the Kerry-Edwards campaign, handling media relations for the candidates' families. It's possible that a Kerry-Edwards victory in 2004 would have sent Gaskill back to Washington, but fortunately for South Florida, he remains here. Today, Gaskill serves as the communications director for the Fort Lauderdale-based Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus.

Best Place to Walk Along the River

Smoker Park, south side of the New River atop the U.S. 1 Tunnel

Perhaps nowhere in the entire state exists a better spot to bear witness to the forces of change than this small strip of land in downtown Fort Lauderdale. A hundred years ago, someone standing at this spot would have seen a single structure -- the clapboard, cracker-box Stranahan House, where the city started -- and maybe a Seminole paddling a skiff down the river. The area was surrounded by thick undergrowth and wild, vine-filled jungle. Now, Smoker Park sits in a thicket of multistory condominium towers, on top of the Federal Highway tunnel, next to a massive, noisy ventilation unit. Instead of Native American traders, the river is choked with pleasure craft and tourists. The Stranahan House (now a museum) is still there, surrounded as it is by a Cheesecake Factory and every other abomination developers could envision -- just wait for the 45-story-condo where Hyde Park Market now sits. Take a trip to the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society and ask to see a postcard of Smoker Park in the early 1900s, and marvel at the old wood-frame homes. Then go visit today, for a dose of future shock of the present.

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