"The greatest story I've ever told ...

... wasn't the Pentagon on 9/11 or the coverage of President Bush in the months afterward, or the countless tragedies, plane crashes, and "big" stories. It was a prayer vigil. That's right. Two women from the community of Hillendale near Baltimore called me saying three of the neighborhood children had met with tragedy: hit by a car, slain in a drug crime, facing devastating illness. They were having a prayer vigil and could we come to cover it?

We came out to find four people on a ball field on a Saturday morning. I knew the newscast producer would never get away with letting us tell that story; yet the women's sincerity and intentions needed to be told.

My photojournalist and I noticed that across the boulevard, a church was holding some kind of festival. Across the street I marched. I explained to the minister what was happening with these four lonely women on the other side, thanked them, and walked away. Minutes later we looked up, and across the street paraded dozens of men, women, and children.

The result was a wide circle of 100 or more people praying for the children. That the original prayer warriors were black and the church people mostly white only made the story - and the message - better. No news director or award committee will ever know it, but that was the greatest story I ever told."

Mark A. Vernarelli