WORLD AIDS DAY: Randy Shiltz, Mike Makela, Tom Cassidy, Gordon Hodgson, James Medina

December 1 is the 19th Annual WORLD AIDS DAY. There's plenty of news coverage to go around. Rather than add to that, I just want to take a moment to mention five people I've know in my life who are gone because of this damned disease. They'd probably be the first to argue they're not special (although the first one you've all heard of), but they were all special to me, and the point is by now we all have our own set of names belonging to people who were gone too soon.

RANDY SHILTZ
Most people know him as the author of And the Band Played On, the book about the disease that became the HBO film. I knew Randy as the candidate who convinced me to campaign for him to be University of Oregon student body president. Plus, he was the editor of our school paper, the Oregon Daily Emerald.

TOM CASSIDY
In Eugene, Oregon, Tom and I were competitors, each working for a different TV station as reporters. Later, we both ended up at CNN as correspondents. Tom went public with his disease, stayed on the air, and helped increase public awareness.

MIKE MAKELA
Mike and I worked together at KVAL-TV in Eugene, Oregon in the late 1970s. We were good friends, went on runs together, that kind of thing. At work, he was a true professional, but always full of humor and a positive attitude. He last worked in Phoenix before passing away in 1996.

GORDON HODGSON
Gordon was my brother Alan's best friend in high school. I remember playing lots of cards and board games together. Gordon went on to study at Gonzaga University and serve in the Army in Vietnam as a supply clerk before he died in the early 80s.

JAMES MEDINA (aka Jimmy Taggert)
Jimmy, as I knew him, was an actor I first met here in Hollywood when I cast him in a short scene I'd written and was staging at the Director's Guild. Later, we collaborated on a cookbook, Dude Food, where we cast him as the "Dude."

All of these men died in their 30s and 40s. All good men. All missed.

Stop AIDS. Keep the promise.