TAMPA - Four Hillsborough County residents, including Clerk of the Circuit Court Pat Frank, were honored today as advocates for human rights.

Frank won the Hank Warren Award, given to an elected or appointed official each year by the Tampa/Hillsborough County Human Rights Council for supporting legislation or policies furthering opportunities in health care, education and housing and public accommodations.

Frank recalled being one of just 10 members of the state House who opposed the law prohibiting gay or lesbian Floridians from adopting children.

"Why should we single out one group of people and say they're not worthy to adopt children?" Frank said during a ceremony this morning at the Fred B. Karl County Center.

Frank said the recent election of President-elect Barack Obama gives hope that old barriers based on race, sex, national origin and sexual orientation finally will be shattered.

"There's so much turmoil in the world, so much anger," Frank said. "We have to quit looking at the appearances of people and start looking at the souls of people."

Other award winners were Taurean Wong, Pat Spencer and David Sinclair.

Wong said his life was turned around by Community Tampa Bay Anytown, a youth leadership and diversity awareness program for teenagers. Wong, who says he, too, was a troubled teen, became a volunteer in the program and has given more than 22 weeks of service during the past seven summers. He has conducted youth conferences and unity days in Hillsborough and Pinellas County schools.

Spencer has been involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since she was in second grade. She was a member of the NAACP youth council in Montgomery, Ala., as a teen, and her adviser was civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. She was the first black long-distance operator for Southern Bell Telephone Co. Spencer volunteers with WUSF radio, reading to people with vision problems.

Sinclair has done social work with the homeless, refugees, farmworkers, mentally ill prisoners and, currently, with the elderly. He organized the first global Alternative Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 and a global boycott of Nestlé over allegations of unethical marketing of infant formula.

The four winners will be honored at the 35th annual Human Rights Council Awards Breakfast on Dec. 12 at Doubletree Hotel Tampa Westshore Airport, 4500 W. Cypress St. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased by contacting Ross Silvers at (813) 274-5835 or by e-mail at ross.silvers@tampagov.net.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com.