By KIM WILMATH, St. Petersburg Times

TAMPA, Fla. - Those six months of homework assignments, bus rides and sweaty PE classes were some of the best of Connor Hernandez's life.

He won an art-class award and picked up a new nickname, Yoda, from his third-grade classmates. He played hockey in the afternoon and ate from a lunch box.

Then the cancer came back.

RIVERVIEW, Fla. - Doris Barrilleaux can barely reach the steering wheel of her champagne Honda anymore, not without one of those humiliating little pillows.

She used to be 5 feet 4. Now she's 5-3. This seems to irritate her far more than all the other reminders of her 79 years.

BRANDON, Fla. - When they gave her the tiny T-shirt, Crystal Arjona nearly cried.

On the front was a smiling zebra, above the words "especially cute" in cursive. It matched a pair of little striped pants with footsies and pink bows.

But what made this shirt perfect for Arjona's 1-month-old girl, Anaiya Longoria, were the little pink snaps that opened the shirt from the front.

Zach Bonner is at it again.

While most kids his age are reveling in the last few weeks of summer vacation, Zach is trudging across the Arizona desert -- wearing out his shoes and his tiny body in the name of charity.

Every day at all hours, 12-year-old Trim is on call. Working at MacDill Air Force Base is serious stuff, and Trim likes to be where there's action.
And that's with the birds.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Vera Kuemmel paced Tampa International Airport late Monday, waiting for her 83-year-old mother's return from New York.The plane had been on the ground for hours. Where was her mother? Not in baggage claim, where the two had agreed to meet.