Fox’s ‘Secret Millionaire’ gifts local wheelchair athlete $20k

Stephen R. Sylvanie / Special to the Home News

With the top of his head mere inches above the lip of a jump, Aaron Fotheringham soars into the Guinness World Book of Records by performing a back flip in his wheelchair at Doc Romeo skate park on Oct. 20.

By Steve Silver (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008 | 9:22 p.m.

Going For The Record

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Aaron Fotheringham, 16, attempts to set a Guinness Book of World Record for a wheelchair backflip.

Stephen R. Sylvanie / Special to the Home News

Aaron Fotheringham crests the lip of a bowl at Doc Romeo skate park while performing various tricks before setting his own world record on Oct. 20.

Aaron Fotheringham flipped his way into the Guinness Book of World Records in October for completing the first ever back flip in a wheelchair.

Thursday night, the 16-year-old Northwest Las Vegas resident flipped his way into a nice chunk of change.

Fotherhingham unknowingly befriended a multi-millionaire Salt Lake City entrepreneur posing as a 'Regular Joe' on the season finale of Fox's reality television show, "Secret Millionaire."

The premise of the show is that each week a millionaire goes undercover into poor sections of various cities in hopes of finding people worthy of a large monetary gift. The recipients are often people who have overcome great personal obstacles or others who devote themselves to various forms of community service.

In this episode, the wealthy businessman, Greg Haerr, wrote Fotheringham a check for $20,000 at the Doc Romeo Skate Park to help the teenager start his own company to help other handicapped children compete in wheelchair athletics.

Fotheringham wants to name his start-up the Hard Core Sitting Company.

Haerr gave away another $120,000 to two other Las Vegas residents in Thursday's show.

Steve Silver can be reached at 948-7822 or steve.silver@lasvegassun.com.