2008 Readers' Choice Nashvillian of the Year: Hal Cato

In what we hope will become an annual event, the Scene invited readers to nominate the Nashvillian who has most affected the city for the good of all over the past year. The first Readers' Choice Nashvillian of the Year—a selection who sets a high benchmark for this inaugural honor—is Hal Cato, CEO of the Oasis Center and a longtime exemplar of civic improvement.

Space does not permit a full directory of the local charities, nonprofits and community organizations Cato has helped: a short list includes Nashville CARES, Hands On Nashville, Bright Horizons Foundation for Children and Bethlehem Centers of Nashville. But as CEO of Oasis (oasiscenter.org), which provides crucial services, counseling and support for Nashville's at-risk youth, Cato was instrumental in a project that amounts to a lighthouse of hope for young people in need: the Youth Opportunity Center on Charlotte, which gathers under one roof 10 mutually supportive nonprofits and more than 30 services ranging from job assistance to emergency housing.

"Hal's intelligence, charisma and limitless drive inspire great accomplishments and the best in others," wrote the unsigned Oasis Center staffers who nominated him. "His limitless vision of what is possible has changed Nashville in so many positive ways it would take far more than these few paragraphs to list them all. Hal Cato represents the very best and brightest of our community." —Jim Ridley