Guest column/Oprah Winfrey remains a very gifted, caring person

One of the most powerful gifts that one can possess is love, and love will always exemplify the gift of giving. To give cannot always be identified as financial. To help someone by listening attentively with a caring heart while giving constructive advice with a helping hand is vitally important.

I believe love has brought Oprah Winfrey to this place in her life, and her place at the present time is extraordinary.

Winfrey was born in 1954 in Mississippi. She is an African-American talk show host, actress and writer. She was sexually abused as a child, which caused serious behavioral problems. She was then sent to live with her father, Vernon, in Nashville, Tenn. There, she was hired as a reporter by a local radio station. While in college, she went to work for Nashville's CBS affiliate, and, in 1971, she became the city's first female anchorwoman.

In 1976, Winfrey joined WJZ-TV in Baltimore, where she demonstrated strong appeal as the co-host of a morning show called "Baltimore is Talking."

She left in 1984 to host "A.M. Chicago," and within three months she had surpassed her competition, "The Phil Donahue Show," in the ratings.

She proved to be so popular that her program was renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Show." That show has become one of the most successful shows in television history while making Oprah one of the richest women in America.

In 1985, she earned an Academy Award nomination for her role in the film version of Alice Walker's "The Color Purple."

Winfrey is the owner of her own company, Harpo Productions (Harpo is Oprah spelled backward), and her company produced "The Women of Brewster Place," a miniseries based on a novel by Gloria Naylor.

Last year, Oprah built a school for children in South Africa and gave all of the students gifts for the holidays. She encouraged Dr. Phil McGraw, Tyler Perry and others with not only good words but with finances.

Each one of us is blessed, and to be a blessing, we must give back. This is the only reason we are blessed. No man is an island - no man stands alone.

African-Americans must continue to persevere with hard work and faith. We cannot afford to become comfortable.

We cannot dream of anything less than excellence. This kind of gesture is the reason Winfrey has reached the top of her dreams and goals.

(Wiggins, a resident of Steubenville, is president of the Ohio Valley Black Caucus Inc.)