Every year, we invite our community to nominate health care professionals who have done extraordinary work in service to their field and their neighbors for the Champions of Health Care awards. Do people respond?

They've spent time away from their families, friends and favorite pastimes, combing over the latest scientific literature and burning the candle at both ends to keep their patients, colleagues and communities safe through a rapidly changing pandemic.

People who have recovered from COVID-19 carry a potentially powerful weapon against the disease in their veins, and Blood Assurance moved fast to tap that resource in the early days of the pandemic.

Betsy Chase says she has always been interested in working behind the scenes.

Brad Pope may not be a health care provider, but he's looking out for 16,000 employees at 16 hospitals in six states at a time when the pressures on health care professionals are extraordinary.

Integrity. Diligence. Compassion. Translated to human actions, these three words can mean: Do the right thing, work hard and love others.

Fresh out of Samford University in the early 1960s, Birmingham native Jim Pesnell went to work for International Harvester. His sales job entailed driving a big truck.

As the oldest of five siblings in a relatively poor family in Idaho, Rae Bond learned early about the challenges of health care and its costs when her father had a heart attack when Bond was 11 years old.

Dr. Rob Headrick, chief of thoracic surgery at CHI Memorial Chest and Lung Cancer Center, has made it his mission to prove that lung cancer doesn't have to be a death sentence — that even people who are most at risk, such as longtime tobacco users and those with a family history of cancer, can complete treatment and go on to live healthy lives.

As a medical student at the University of Kentucky in the early 1970s, Dr. Susan McGuire was convinced of one thing — under no circumstances would she pursue psychiatry as her specialty.

Transforming a high school research lab into a COVID-19 testing facility capable of processing hundreds of tests a day with 24-hour turnaround times was a huge undertaking.

The new coronavirus moved fast, unleashing a health care crisis that evolved into an economic and social emergency, hitting the most vulnerable communities hardest.

The same reasons his firm liked Chattanooga before the coronavirus outbreak are still in place in the city today, says Alan McMahon of Charleston, South Carolina-based developer The Beach Co.

The fundamentals of buying and selling real estate may not change much, but nearly everything about how the deals get done is transforming all the time.

When the novel coronavirus began to spread in Chattanooga this spring, home sales by Chattanooga Realtors dropped by more than 20% in April and May as both sellers and buyers stayed home and were initially cautious to make any moves during the pandemic shutdowns.

While the relative affordability of local real estate is one of Chattanooga's top draws, the area also offers a world of options if you've got a little something to spend.

Not everyone can work from home, and the Times Free Press is recognizing the essential workers who are on the job every day. From grocery stores and fire stations to construction sites and hospitals, our friends and neighbors are making sure the work gets done.

Court has long been a place where people show up, stand up, and work out whatever's at issue in front of a judge or jury. From lawyers and their clients to court clerks and court reporters, it has always been all about being there.

Canceled events, deals months in the making that won't get done, down payments that people want back. The pandemic has snarled business and legal issues in novel ways that make the usual precedents all but useless.

When Gary Behler took over as Hamilton County Juvenile Court Clerk in 2011, his clerks didn't have email and meticulously entered court filings and schedules by hand in large ledger books and files that filled shelves from floor to ceiling in several county buildings.

Their business brought people together to celebrate the art and pleasure of cooking in a shared space where they prepared meals with the help of a professional chef.

Put her there, pal! Give me some skin!

In late January, just weeks after China first acknowledged the growing presence of the coronavirus, J.D. Hickey urged the senior staff at Tennessee's biggest health insurer to begin thinking about how to prepare for a possible pandemic should the virus expand to the United States.