UPDATED: This post was originally pushed on August 22, 2008. I’m bumping it up because the agenda for Tuesday’s Peoria City Council meeting shows Kathleen is getting a proclamation in her honor.

This is so cool.

This month’s issue of Wal-Mart World magazine has two people I know on the cover: Kathleen Close and Tommy Smith. Both are long-time employees of Store 1323 (that’s the Wal-Mart on North University in Peoria).

Co-workers nominated Kathleen for the Sam Walton Hero Award because she spearheaded the effort to get Tommy the help he needed to get away from people who were taking advantage of him. Tommy is developmentally disabled. He is a valued employee at Wal-Mart, but needed help escaping the situation.

I worked with both Kathleen and Tommy when I was an associate there more years ago than I care to count. Both of them are great people and a pleasure to work with. It does not surprise me that Kathleen stepped up and took responsibility for helping out Tommy.

Kudos to both.