Where are TODAY’s 2007 newsmakers now?

Among the hundreds of people whose stories were chronicled by TODAY in 2007, some stand out months later, begging for the answer to the question: “Where are they now?”

On Friday, TODAY brought six of those people back for updates on the stories that so captivated viewers when they first aired.

Among them are a couple who had a storybook wedding hosted by Martha Stewart; a soldier who surprised his two sons at school with an unannounced homecoming; a cheerleader who took a smearing and kept on cheering; a disgraced beauty queen who made the most of a second chance; and a man who amputated his arm to save his own life.

Here’s where they are now:

Tara Conner
Tara Conner was the reigning Miss USA back in February when she made the first of three appearances on TODAY, and it was for all the wrong reasons. She had just gotten out of rehab after reports surfaced in December that she had been drinking underage and doing drugs. Pictures on the Internet of her kissing Miss Teen USA Katie Blair added to the scandal.

Given a second chance by pageant co-owner Donald Trump, Conner completed her year as Miss USA, returning to TODAY after crowning her successor in March. She was back in October to talk about her MTV reality show, “Pageant Place,” which she co-hosted with the current Miss USA and Miss Teen USA.

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She’s recently celebrated her first anniversary of sobriety. Last year, she spent Christmas in rehab; this year, she spent it in Kentucky with her family.

“It’s definitely a different holiday season,” she told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Friday in New York. “It’s been such a good year.”

She said she’s enjoying her life of sobriety, and was not tempted to leap off the wagon at a big 22^nd birthday bash earlier this month in Las Vegas. “It’s really not that hard,” she said. “I keep sobriety every single day.”

She said she has mixed emotions about what she went through, but, she added, “I’ve never looked back on it and regretted it. I’m living out my dreams.”

She is living in Los Angeles now and pursuing jobs in the entertainment industry while working as an online correspondent for the E! Network.

Still working daily on her continuing recovery, she says she talks to other alcoholics and addicts every day and is working on a book about her experiences.

“I’m being brutally, brutally honest in the book,” she said. “I’m an open book generally in life. Why not put it down?”

Video   Update: Iraq soldier’s family reunion Dec. 28: Thomas Bourne’s wife, Amy, and his sons, Walker and Preston, tell TODAY’s Ann Curry about staying positive and being proud of their dad. Today show

Lt. Thomas Bourne
We met Lt. Thomas Bourne a week before Thanksgiving when he came home from Iraq on leave and surprised his two young sons, Preston, 8, and Walker, 5, at their school in Louisa, Va. Bourne’s wife, Amy, had kept her husband’s homecoming a secret from the boys, whose joyous reaction to the sudden appearance of their father made one of the year’s most memorable video highlights.

Bourne had been in Iraq for five months, and he crammed as much family time as he could into his all-too-brief two-week leave. On the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, he returned to Iraq, where he is stationed in Balad, 40 miles north of Baghdad.

Preston and Walker miss their dad, an Army reservist who is a teacher in the school they attend, especially at Christmas, which they are spending with their mother at their grandmother’s home in Paris, Ill.

They understand why he can’t be home, but they can’t wait until July, when his tour of duty is scheduled to end.

Amy Bourne, speaking from Illinois with Preston and Walker, told TODAY’s Ann Curry that it was tough saying goodbye again a month ago. “But we’re looking at it this way: After this next little bit, he gets to come home to stay with us,” she said. “We’re looking at the positive side.”

She has told the children that their daddy’s helping the people of Iraq.

“He’s trying his best to save us, and I’m really proud of what he’s doing for our country,” Preston told Curry.

Asked what message she would give to other families in the same situation as hers, Amy Bourne said, “To stay strong and keep on the positive side of everything. At times it’s going to get hard and stressed out. But keep your chin up. They’re over there for a just cause, and they’re over there because they want to be there.”

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