PRESQUE ISLE – If you ask Larry Harrison to name a local hero, he can give you a whole list.

Harrison, the Aroostook County Branch manager of the American Red Cross, helped to organize the seventh annual Real Heroes Breakfast, held recently at Northern Maine Community College, where six individuals and a team of local residents were honored with recognition and awards.

The event celebrated recent lifesaving and heroic acts by Aroostook County residents, Harrison said Tuesday.

“The main thing is to recognize the folks that have done heroic things in Aroostook County,” Harrison said. “That’s the mission of the Red Cross, to help people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies.”

Officials presented three Good Samaritan youth awards, three Good Samaritan adult awards and one Good Samaritan team award.

Honorees included:

. Joshua Barnes, a Fort Fairfield student, who rescued a fellow student from drowning during his first day in lifeguard training. The drowning victim fell into the water after experiencing an undiagnosed epileptic seizure.

. Nathan Corbin, a 12-year-old from Caribou, who ran for help when his father had a heart attack. Corbin was accompanying his father on a long-haul truck delivery at the time.

. Jessie Currier, a lifeguard at the Presque Isle outdoor pool, who rescued a drowning woman. The woman had pushed a friend under the water in her panic.

. Monica Bearden and Nicolas Casavant, Presque Isle residents, who happened upon a motor vehicle accident that left a local woman fatally injured. Bearden helped to contact police and both students provided first aid to the victim until EMTs arrived.

. Roger Foster, a foreman for a construction company, who rescued a traffic flagger after she was hit by a logging truck and knocked underneath the vehicle’s trailer. Foster dived under the trailer and rolled her and himself out of the way to avoid being crushed by the truck’s wheels.

. Staff and students from the University of Maine at Presque Isle, who called 911 and provided CPR to their classmate after he collapsed and was found to have no pulse. The classmate did not recover, but the team did all they could to maintain the man’s life support until emergency teams arrived.

All honorees were given a plaque for their actions.

Though the recognitions were of primary importance, Harrison said the event serves another purpose: It’s one of three critical fund-raisers the branch hosts every year.

The fund-raisers are important because most of the branch’s operating budget, about $130,000 per year, comes from donations, Harrison said.

The Aroostook County Branch received about $5,600 in donations from the breakfast. Organizers had a goal to raise $7,000, but pointed out that this is the first year since the event’s creation that they’ve had such a big response in the form of corporate sponsorships. More than half the money they raised came from such sponsorships.

“We need to raise funds from across Aroostook County to keep the programs we have up and running at the same level that they have been,” Harrison said. “We’re hoping this continues to grow each year.”