Although he considers Los Alamos his home, Louie Cernicek returned to his native land of Czechoslovakia, where he was honored as the village of Pisarov's "Most Distinguished Citizen."

Born on September 23, 1924, Louie was fourteen years old when he joined the Czech underground to fight Hitler. "When you're fighting something, you never think of losing," he said. "You fight because you think you can win. Fighting the Nazis was very difficult. I had to contact police, gendarmes, and to find out information from them, somehow, so that the underground could profit from it."

A resident of Los Alamos since 1954, Louie brought his love of soccer to the children of northern New Mexico. He founded soccer teams for both boys and girls at Los Alamos High School in the mid-1970s.

Additional biographical material can be found in the Los Alamos Monitor of April 2, 2000.

Written by Karen Nilsson Brandt, copyright ©