Hi neighbors. Have you seen the new show on television where the audience is supposed to vote for the "Greatest" American? The show started Thursday night and 100 people were on the list. Supposedly this list was made by more than 500,000 Americans choosing them in some poll. The "contest" will go on for the entire month of June. The top 25 names on the list are the only ones we can chose among to vote for the number one position.

Well, gee. Have you ever gone to a much anticipated sale and came home having bought nothing? Some of the people on the list should obviously have been there. Some should have been anywhere else.

There were a few names missing that really should have been on the list. After the show I decided I would have chosen some different people for my list.

One thing I thought odd was there were no Native Americans on the list. There was an Austrian, several Germans and an American-born Australian.

The groups of people on the list included: inventors, activists, athletes, politicians, actors, musicians, military figures, authors, TV personalities, radio celebrities, business leaders, aviators, first ladies, religious leaders and directors.

More than a fourth of the 100 were involved in entertainment. There were lots of politicians, including four slots for the Bush family, two for the Clintons, three for the Kennedy clan (unless you count cousin-by-marriage Arnie Schwarzenegger) who would bring the total Kennedys to four.

There were several dead and living presidents and entertainment figures. There were a few who were both.

Elvis made the top 25 as did Oprah and George Washington. Well, here are the 25 left to choose from to select the number one -- "Greatest" American: Muhammand Ali, Lance Armstrong, Neil Armstrong, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Walt Disney, Alva Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates, Billy Graham, Bob Hope, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, Elvis Presley, Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, Oprah Winfrey and Wilbur & Orville Wright.

Some surprising choices were Condoleezza Rice, Madonna, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Dr. Phil McGraw and John Edwards.

If more than half a million people made these selections, I think they must have been choosing some simply by who they saw on the news that day.

There were some greats on the list of course: Andrew Carnegie, George Washington Carver, Amelia Earhart, Rudolph Giuliani, Helen Keller, Audie Murphy (where was Ira Hays?), Christopher Reeve, Babe Ruth, Jonas Salk, Mark Twain (but where was Poe?) and John Wayne.

There were lots of people who might have been on the list who weren't named. There is a great gap between founding fathers and the 20th century pop stars. This gap had many wonderful Americans.

Ah well, the list stands. Defining what Americans consider a key to greatness in their heroes. I suppose it would be impossible to make a list of only 100 Americans who have contributed something to the culture and the world. It would certainly be impossible to make such a list that no one disagreed with.

Who would you add to the list? Take off of it?

If you want to vote among the top 25 for the greatest American, you have to stay tuned and catch the call in number, Web site or way to text message your vote in.

It might make a pretty good lesson in history as well as social science for parents to use to see who their children consider "great" Americans. Go over the list with your children and see if they know who each of these people are and what they did. Take the categories listed above and see how many people in each you and your children can come up with. Doesn't matter if they are on the list or not.

Make your own list. Are there other categories not addressed? Sounds like an interesting way to spend a Sunday afternoon. You might find out a lot you didn't know about yourself, your family and those who have made an impact on American culture.

I suppose the list is more varied than my own list might have been, and certainly shorter.

It seems odd to try and pick only 100 people out of the millions who have shaped America. I think it will be impossible to select one out of those millions to be designated the "greatest." Which reminds me -- why wasn't Jackie Gleason on the list?

Until the next time friends remember; even if you didn't personally make the greatest American list, you can be pretty confident your name appears on some list somewhere.