The 12 people voted at the top in education in Western Pennsylvania have at least one thing in common: years of service in the region.

The top vote-getter, Helen Faison, director of the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute at Chatham College and former acting superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools, has been working in education in the region since 1950, when she was hired to teach at the former Fifth Avenue High School in the Hill District.

Of the top dozen, the nearly all have been on the Pittsburgh education scene for well over a decade.

They are among the people leading foundations, school districts and higher education programs who are at the top of the list.

All were selected on the basis of how many nominations they received from someone in the field of education who responded to a call from the Post-Gazette to help select the top people who have made a difference in education in Western Pennsylvania.

Beyond the top dozen vote-getters, who received at least eight nominations, there were 36 others who got at least three votes, making a Top 48.

The voting procedure is described on Page ED-3.

In addition to Faison, the others in the top-12 vote-getters category are:

* Ronald Cowell, president of the Education Policy and Leadership Center;

* Richard Wallace, former superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools;

* Joseph Dominic, education director for the Heinz Endowments;

* Susan Brownlee, executive director of the Grable Foundation;

* Diane Briars, senior program officer for science and math in Pittsburgh Public Schools

* Linda Croushore, executive director, Mon Valley Education Consortium;

* Jerry Longo, superintendent, Quaker Valley School District;

* Mark Nordenberg, chancellor, University of Pittsburgh;

* Joseph Werlinich, co-director of the Western Pennsylvania Principals Academy;

*Al Fondy, president of the Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers;

*Bill Isler, president of the Pittsburgh school board.

The remaining 36 individuals rounding out the Top 48 are: Stanley Herman, John W. Thompson, Jared Cohon, J. Kaye Cupples, Charles Gorman, Bill Strickland, Steve Bullick, William Fisher, Schuyler Foerster, K. Leroy Irvis, Mary Margaret Kerr, Albert Labriola, Lauren Resnick, Sister Rita Yeasted;

Isabel Beck, Cecelia Lauris Belasco, Nancy Bunt, Jane Burger, Wayne Doyle, Joshua Green, Patricia Grey, Samuel Hazo, Liz Healey, Steven Kanter, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Kenneth Mitchell, John E. Murray Jr., Robert Paserba, Annie Prucey, Faith Schantz, Roberta Schomburg, Fred Smeigh, William Stavisky, James F. Will, Mary Zappone and Sandy Zelno.

All told, the newspaper received 721 nominations from 263 people. They named 422 people they believe have had a significant impact on education in Western Pennsylvania.

The wide variety of nominations is a testament to how varied the education field is -- preschool, kindergarten through 12th grade, higher education, continuing education, all with professionals and volunteers in a wide variety of roles in thousands of schools and other settings.

It also reflects how a significant impact in education can be made in a number of ways.

Who is more important, the administrator who brings innovative programs to a district or the teacher who teaches your child how to read? The person who finds out how children learn best, or the person who advocates to see children get an appropriate education?

The sheer volume of choices made it difficult for any one candidate to amass a large number of nominations.

But that wasn't a problem for Faison, whose life has touched a wide range of education levels and who topped the list at 31 nominations.

"If I thought about this every day for a year, she would still be at the top of my list,'' said one nominator.

Those making the nominations didn't necessarily gravitate to the best-known names or the ones most likely to garner the most votes.

More than 300 of the nominations are of people who were mentioned only once. Many of these are teachers who, over the course of their careers, affect thousands of lives but remain little known to the public at large. The names of those who received a single nomination are listed on our Web site, www.post-gazette.com.

Those who received enough votes to make the Top 12 are recognized beyond the walls of their own buildings. The nominations for all of them included ones that came from at least someone outside their institutions. Nearly all of those who round out the Top 48 also had at least one vote from outside their buildings.

All of those in the Top 12 -- and all but four of those in the Top 48 -- are over the age of 50. The oldest is K. Leroy Irvis, the retired speaker of the state House, who is 87. The youngest is Annie Prucey, education director at the World Affairs Council, who is 31.

Some well-known names -- such as Pittsburgh school Superintendent John W. Thompson and Carnegie Mellon University President Jared Cohon -- made the Top 48, but not the Top 12. Both of them are relative newcomers. Thompson came here more than four years ago from Oklahoma and Cohon arrived about seven years ago from Yale University.