Owens is the founder of Save Our Sons, a mentoring organization that for the past 12 years has been keeping young men out of the criminal justice system and molding them into Contributors to their churches, schools and communities. WJMZ salutes Roger Owens for being a positive, life-changing influence for hundreds of young men in the Upstate.

Owens is a native of Clemson and a former Air Force aviator who served in the Vietnam War. Owens returned to the Upstate when he was hired by Greenville-based Liberty Corp. He worked there as an insurance executive before retiring to run Save-Our-Sons full time.

As Save Our Sons president, Owens has worked tirelessly to make sure that juvenile offenders are given options besides jail. He has worked with the Greenville County School District to lower the disproportionate rate at which African-American students are suspended and expelled. Owens has also been an outspoken proponent of seating more African American judges in South Carolina. Just 8 percent of judges in this state are black, despite the fact that more than one-third of this state's residents are African American and more than half of the criminal defendants in the court system are black.

Owens is outspoken on matters of racial justice. But his greatest work has been matching willing mentors with young men in need of positive role models. Not only are the vast majority of Save Our Sons mentees steering clear of the criminal justice system, a large share are going to college and making a difference in their families and communities.

WJMZ salutes Roger Owens for being the singular force behind the Upstate's effort to save its sons, its families and this community.