For Immediate Release

	December 1, 2004 NBA PRESIDENT KIM KEENAN CO-HOSTS CELEBRATION OF HEROES Shoshana Johnson, Kim Keenan, Jack Olender Washington, DC- NBA President Kim Keenan and Iraq War veteran Shoshana Johnson co-hosted the 19th Olender Foundation Awards at the Reagan Center on December 1, 2004. Keenan is a senior trial lawyer at Jack Olender & Associates and has co-hosted the Olender Foundation Awards six times. In past years, she has shared the stage with Muhammad Ali, Christopher Reeve, Jerry Lewis, Dominique Dawes and other celebrities. Johnson is the first African-American female prisoner of war in U.S. military history and received last year's Woman of Valor Award at the Olender Foundation Awards. Hon. Linda Cropp, Kim Keenan Keenan and Johnson saluted this year's awardees including the Hon. Linda Cropp, Chairman of the D.C. Council, for her service as a "people's advocate;" John Walsh, host of "America's Most Wanted" for his work on behalf of victims rights and missing children; U.S. Army Corporal Jose R. Martinez, a severely wounded U.S. Army soldier, for giving support to his fellow wounded soldiers; Dr. Alberto Martinez, a local surgeon, for restoring sight to a blind girl from his native Columbia; and Rabbi Menachem Youlus, for recovering and repairing more than 400 Torahs-sacred Hebrew scrolls- that disappeared during the Holocaust. Olender Foundation grants went to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Save A Torah Foundation, the Frank Foundation, the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes and the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law Foundation. Also, six students each from Howard University Law School and the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law received scholarships in memory of the late Earl H. Davis.