Their actions don't necessarily have to be earth-shaking or news-making. The person or business could be working steadily behind the scenes to make an impact on people's lives.

Chris Nutter, 72, received last year's individual Pauli Murray Award, in part for her work as co-founder of the Friends of the Orange County Department of Social Services.

The Friends of DSS volunteers work with the county's social workers to help families meet needs ranging from food to clothes to utility bills. Nutter also has been chairwoman of the Board of Social Services, and each year, she and husband Bob Nutter host a picnic at Maple View Farm for social services staff members, foster parents and their children.

The 1999 Pauli Murray youth award went to Danielle Brittany Price, an Orange High School student who was a tutor and peer mediator in the high school's Peer Helpers Program, among other activities.

And last year's Pauli Murray business award went to the Weaver Street Market in Carrboro. The market was honored for things like its gain-sharing program, training for employees and its contribution of a percentage of its sales each year to community causes.

Between now and Jan. 31, Orange County is seeking nominations for this year's awards in the individual, youth and business categories.

The awards honor those with "a significant history of promoting and fostering better human relations among the diverse residents of Orange County."

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray made human relations a primary focus of her life in several roles, including her work as the first black woman in the country ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1977.

Murray was born in Baltimore in 1910, but she grew up in Durham and was raised by her maternal grandparents and aunts, according to biographical information from the North Carolina Writers' Network.

She graduated from Hillside High School and earned degrees from Hunter College, Howard University, the University of California at Berkeley and Yale.

But Murray also was denied entrance in the 1930s to UNC because of her race and to Harvard University because of gender, according to the Writers' Network.

She went on to fight discrimination in all forms and she made a name as a writer, lawyer, professor, college vice president and deputy attorney general for California. At age 62 she entered seminary and eventually performed her first Holy Eucharist in Chapel Hill at the Chapel of the Cross, the same church where her grandmother, a slave, was baptized.

Murray died in 1985.

In the individual category, nominees must have lived in Orange County at least three years, and they must have worked to foster "conciliation, human rights, diversity and/or equality" in the county.

People can be nominated posthumously.

For the youth award, nominees should have "demonstrated, by at least one or more recognized acts, a concern for the rights of all people." Those acts could be a wide range of things like participating in student task forces to "providing leadership in diffusing racial tension," according to the criteria.

The nominees must be full-time students in grades 6-12 or college students 18 years old or younger.

Residents can pick up nomination forms at the Department of Human Rights and Relations in Hillsborough, public libraries in Orange County and the town halls in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough.

Forms also are available online at www.co.orange.nc.us.

The nomination forms and supporting material must be postmarked no later than Jan. 31 and can be mailed to the Awards and Honors Committee, Orange County Human Relations Commission, P.O. Box 8181, Hillsborough, NC 27278.

The materials also can be dropped off at the Department for Human Rights and Relations at 110 S. Churton St. in Hillsborough, across the street from the two courthouses.