Glen Arbor Sun

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August 24, 2006

Will the Lake Street boat ramp move to Glen Haven?

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

High summer means a bottleneck of car and pedestrian traffic in downtown Glen Arbor, and nowhere is the problem more acute than at the north end of Lake Street, where the public boat ramp, Le Bear Resort and sunset watchers all compete for breathing space.

For years now the Glen Arbor Township Board has pushed for an alternative boat ramp at a different Lake Michigan access point in order to relieve congestion. That quest has been kicked into high gear in the last three years since the building of the enormous luxury resort, which, officials admit, has increased the pressure on traffic.

All eyes are now on nearby Glen Haven, where a onetime vibrant fishing village and Coast Guard station have given way to a preserved historic district in the heart of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the local chapter of the National Park Service.

Before there was Glen Arbor, there was Glen Haven, once a maritime hub: for early settlers like D.H. Day arriving from Chicago; for fishing expeditions; and for brave shipwreck rescues in the Manitou Passage, as evidenced by the wood pilings offshore that once supported a giant dock. And yet, the Park opposes moving the public boat ramp to this unique historic town shaped today by its Coast Guard museum, throwback General Store and, of course, its popular, quiet beach.

“We think that putting modern boats into the water would be a detriment to the historic scene,” explains Tom Ulrich, Assistant Superintendent at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. “The further you go toward Sleeping Bear Point (to the west), the quieter it gets. Physically, Glen Haven is the worst location for a boat ramp because of the historic village and the historic pilings.”

The boat ramp that serves Glen Arbor and the surrounding area is used more than a thousand times every summer season, Township officials estimate, and we’re not talking about rowboats and little put-puts. Quaint Glen Haven would host today’s big, muscle boats that take tourists on charter fishing trips to the Manitou Islands if the move happens. The Park claims this would be detrimental to the endangered Piping Plover birds, which now nest near the beach, and the Pitcher’s Thistle plant, which also calls Glen Haven its home.

“Any time you put boats at focused points like that, you create the potential for damage to the natural environment.”

But for Township officials like Terry Gretzema, who heads the Future Boat Launch Ramp Committee, this isn’t an issue of mere convenience, but safety. The boat ramp on Lake Street is the only launch site with docks that allow people in and out of their boat without getting wet anywhere between Leland and Frankfort — more than 50 miles of lake frontage along some notoriously hazardous waters.

The Glen Arbor Township has the support of the Leelanau County Sheriff, the Coast Guard and other townships to move the dock to Glen Haven. The wider access road on M-209 and the open beach area without private businesses to contend with would make future rescue operations in the Manitou Passage quicker and easier.

“These are long runs, and these are treacherous waters,” says Gretzema. The Township has the undisputed rights to three access points in or around Glen Arbor: Lake Street, Manitou Street, and Bay Lane, but none are more than 60 feet wide, and the prevailing winds and waves hammer all three of those spots, whereas Glen Haven is protected by nearby Sleeping Bear Point, Gretzema adds. “We’re restricted as to what we can do as a Township.

“The settlers, and the Native Americans before us knew where to put the boat dock, and it was in Glen Haven.”

Ironically, the Park once considered building an entire marina somewhere in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, but an Environmental Impact Statement in 1984 ruled that the impact on the resources the Park is here to protect would have been too great. To be fair, points out Assistant Superintendent Tom Ulrich, the 1984 study was for a marina and not just a boat launch.

The National Lakeshore’s 1979 General Management Plan highlights the need to provide people with recreational access to the lake and to the land. And that battle between recreation and preservation has taken center stage in almost every ideological debate within the Park, and with the local community, since the 70’s. This boat ramp issue is just another chapter in that ongoing saga.

The other question here is who actually owns the beach at Glen Haven, or better put, whether the Leelanau County Road Commission’s legal road right-of-way on M-209 runs all the way to the water, since the pavement actually stops short of Lake Michigan. The Glen Arbor Township believes it does, and the Road Commission will likely hear the Township’s request for a Glen Haven boat dock at their September 5 meeting. But the Township’s pitches to the Park have so far fallen on deaf ears because, Ulrich says, the National Lakeshore does not believe the right-of-way extends to the water. And the Park’s Midwest region Lands Office in Omaha, Nebraska has been exceedingly slow at investigating the Township’s legal request — not atypical of the National Park.

“We’ve been bugging them to act,” Ulrich says about Omaha. “But they are understaffed.”

To Terry Gretzema and the Township Board the situation is clear: local government does have the right to build a dock at the end of M-209; and the pilings off the beach and the settler village’s history as a maritime community and Coast Guard station prove that Glen Haven is the best spot around for a new boat launch. Gretzema also told the Glen Arbor Sun that the Park ought to lend the Township a hand and help facilitate certain recreational activities because when the National Lakeshore was established in the 70’s it ate up most of the Glen Arbor Township’s public land.

Glen Arbor’s zoning laws favor private homes and private business, like Le Bear Resort (the building of which the Township approved, before Gretzema joined the board), and that often puts the Township between a rock and a hard place. But Gretzema doesn’t blame Le Bear for the current congestion on Lake Street. The developers “were within their rights to build” the resort, he says. “I don’t think Le Bear caused it. This has been a problem for years and years.” And the Township’s efforts to move the boat ramp to Glen Haven are much older than Le Bear Resort.

One day in mid-August Gretzema noticed 20 boats and trailers along Lake Street, making it tough for any large vehicles from getting to the boat ramp without causing a fender bender. Meanwhile, in nearby Glen Haven, beachgoers and visitors to the maritime museum were enjoying a peaceful afternoon without the sounds of motorboats or jet skis filling their ears — a scene that would certainly change if the Glen Arbor Township rebuilds a boat dock in the historic district.

Something’s gotta give.

What do you think? Please visit our website, www.glenarborsun.com to post a comment, or mail us a letter to the editor at P.O. Box 615, Glen Arbor.

Posted by editor at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

Seep in tranquility with Great Lakes Tea and Spice

By Maggie Meyers
Sun contributor

August 19 marked the fiftieth day of business for the Great Lakes Tea and Spice Company, a promising new addition to Glen Arbor’s business community. Snugly situated in a quiet enclave near the Ruth Conklin Gallery on M-109 and tucked directly behind the Sleeping Bear Animal Clinic, the Tea and Spice Company’s space engenders an instantaneous sense of detachment from the noise and haste that fills Glen Arbor in the summertime.

A few yards west of the Pine Cone ice cream shop, just past the storefront to the Glen Arbor Botanicals Gallery, stands an enticing sign that reads, ‘Follow the Path to Enlightenment’. Curious passersby enter the shady stone path and are lead to a quaint courtyard, at the center of which sits the Tea and Spice Company’s retail shop, a charming 12 foot x 12 foot trading post. Upon entering the tiny shop, the visitor is inundated with fragrant aromas arising from the many enticing offerings that fill every inch of the cozy space. Each day, complimentary samples of three specialty tea blends — one hot and two iced — are freshly made for the enjoyment of all who wander through. Many a first time visitor’s attention heads straight to Cappy, a two-year-old Blue and Gold Macaw — an adoptee of the company’s owners, husband-and-wife team Chris and Heather Sack — which perches and chatters effusively in front of the shop. Cappy spends each day engaging visitors, especially those of the younger contingent, who, with a comical combination of anticipation and trepidation, approach him — hands outstretched — with offers of crackers and other treats.

Though still in its nascent stages, the Tea and Spice Company already offers an extensive selection of premium quality imported goods from China, South Africa, India and France. At present, the company’s product line includes 23 fine tea and herbal ‘tisane’ blends, and an assortment of innovative spice blends and fine sea salts that are capable of transforming even the most mundane meal into haute cuisine. Perhaps even more noteworthy are the 11 varieties of flowering teas that are as aesthetically appealing to the eye as they are pleasing to the palate. In addition to all of the consumable goods, the Tea and Spice Company offers a wide selection of high quality (yet affordable) heat resistant glass teaware, fine crafted kitchen accoutrements and an array of other international textile goods.

The couple traces their interest in the products they now sell to a business trip Heather took to China in 2003, as Director of Admissions and Financial Aid for The Leelanau School. There, Heather discovered a fondness for fine tea and an appreciation of its consumption as a daily ritual. But it was not until April of 2005 that the notion of a business enterprise focusing on tea and spices first struck the Sacks, subsequent to a moment of mutual clarity in which, according to Chris, Heather and I “realized the most straightforward way to achieve the lifestyle we wanted was to go start our own business.” One of their major long-term goals, according to Heather, is “to import and blend everything ourselves.” Chris and Heather are fundamentally committed to seeking out organic products that abide by fair trade standards whenever possible. Another of the couple’s aspirations is to have the means to pursue extensive world travel and gain a greater awareness of the tea and spice industry, in order to ensure they make socially responsible decisions when choosing merchants.

The ideal existence the Sacks envision is one in which they can provide a comfortable life for their children without sacrificing quality family time. For Chris and Heather, parenthood is without question the highest priority. In June 2003, the couple welcomed their son August (named after great-grandfather), and their daughter Amelie arrived in June of 2005. The emphasis that Chris and Heather place on the importance of family has been fundamental to their approach in developing their business. In Chris’s words, “Supporting each other to make significant things happen reminds you of the importance of family in building and founding a business.” In fact, Heather’s mother, Mariann, and her husband, Veterinarian Rodger VanderWerff, have generously provided Heather and Chris their space on the property of the Sleeping Bear Animal Clinic, which is owned by the VanderWerffs and run by Rodger.

Balancing parenting with jumpstarting a new business is an arduous undertaking, yet Chris and Heather embrace the constant challenges that continue to unfold. The couple’s ability to manage such a juggling act — and keep smiles on their faces all the while — reflects the incredibly high level of energy, enthusiasm and healthy optimism that Chris and Heather share. Their philosophy rests upon the principle of taking life seriously, yet in a lighthearted way, which lends to a business ethic, summed up by Chris as “having fun by selling fun.” Ultimately, the Sacks’ attitude towards running their new business mirrors their orientation towards life in general, and is rooted in strong family values and a commitment to community.

As partners in life and business, Chris and Heather’s strengths prove highly complementary. Heather contributes a keen sense of tea, professional experience in administrative work and finance, and solid graphic arts skills, which have been put to use in packaging design and marketing — and does all this while maintaining her full-time position at The Leelanau School. Chris, a savvy cook, has made most of the decisions in regards to the line of spice products, while his professional background in education and retail make him perfectly suited to tend shop each day and enthusiastically share his knowledge about the products with customers.

While the fine quality of the company’s product line speaks for itself, ultimately the charming and welcoming atmosphere that owners Chris and Heather Sack have created — incorporating mindfulness with a genuine passion for life — is what gives the Great Lakes Tea and Spice Company promising potential as a successful local business that will explore uncharted territory and become a peaceful gathering place for all locals and summer visitors to enjoy.

The Great Lakes Tea and Spice Company’s daily hours are 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. The shop will be open for business through October 20.

Posted by editor at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

Is the Rescue found?

From staff reports

State police divers searching for the body of a man who drowned in Big Glen Lake last summer may have instead solved one of the area’s great mysteries — the location of Ralph Dorsey’s passenger steamboat, Rescue, which he sank intentionally in 1914.

Divers located a 32 x 10-foot boat in 124 feet of water in the middle of the lake on August 17 and will reportedly return to it on the weekend of August 26. There are still no signs of the drown man’s body.

The Rescue was the subject of a community-led search in May of 2003 that was as technological as it was folkloric. Local resident Chuck Olsen brought a team of professional scientists from the University of Michigan and their hi-tech underwater robot, the M-ROVER, which combed the depths of Glen Lake in vain for two days, while historians, fishermen and old-timers gathered in two flotillas of boats and debated why Dorsey sank his boat, and where. Local students from Glen Lake and The Leelanau School produced a documentary of the unsuccessful search.

Now they may have more to talk about. To read the Glen Arbor Sun’s coverage of Captain Ralph Dorsey and the 2003 search for the Rescue, please visit us on the web at www.glenarborsun.com/archives/2003/06/dorseys_sunken.html.

Posted by editor at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

A new breed of Leelanau farmer

By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor

In an era of declining family farms, both in Leelanau County and nationally, it seems almost astonishing to encounter individuals willing to carry on the ancient and honorable traditions of tilling the soil and caring for animals. Maple City sheep farmer Alesha Ashley — intelligent, energetic, and determined — is one of a new generation of agricultural stewards gracing Leelanau’s landscapes.

The 26-year-old grew up in small-town Albion; her father works for Post, and her mother is a lab technician in nearby Battle Creek. Although she majored in economics and accounting at the University of Detroit-Mercy College, she has always enjoyed working with animals. In 2004, she decided to pursue her early dream of farming, and familiar with this region through vacations in Benzie County, Alesha chose work as an intern for several months at Forest Garden Organic Farm near Maple City, owned by Jim Moses and Linda Grigg. Poultry farming is one of her interests, and Jim and Linda’s advice proved valuable as she established her brood of 20 hens and three roosters this spring.

Alesha also bought a pair of male goats, Nibbler and P.B., when they were about three weeks old, both for companionship and lawn-mowing duty. She cheerfully bottle-fed the kids every four hours for a month; however, the rambunctious duo eventually proved too much for the budding farmer. “They got into trouble all the time!” she laughs, somewhat ruefully. “Goats are acrobats, and they work as a team. They’ll definitely teach you where your fencing needs are.” She sold P.B., but keeps Nibbler, whose sunny social disposition is testimony to the farmer’s positive yet disciplined approach with her animals.

With her passion for the fiber arts, especially spinning, knitting, felting and touring yarn shops, Alesha has acquired several sheep, the sole survivors of a flock that had been savaged by stray dogs. Her white ram Aragorn is a Rambouillet, a breed prized for their fine wool, while Nemo, a young male, and Hershey, a pregnant older ewe, are Suffolk stock. Anne and Willow, two Corriedale-mix females, round out the flock. The sheep were sheared in April by an itinerant shearer, and their fleeces sent to upstate New York to be cleaned and made into roving (fiber prepared for spinning). Alesha frequents the farmers’ markets in Glen Arbor and Leland, selling her wool and demonstrating spinning and knitting techniques.

Partner Hoyt Dunkin provides the pastureland on 40 acres just east of Maple City, as well as much-needed helping hands for the many and diverse chores that a new farming operation entails. This quiet, easygoing son of the 1960’s grew up in urban Royal Oak, near Detroit, studied computer-aided design and drafting, and joined the Army, where he served as a peacekeeper in Egypt, enforcing the Camp David Peace Accord. Later, as a National Guard member, he was called into battle during Desert Storm. Returning to civilian life, Hoyt worked as a cellular tower designer, before returning full-time to Leelanau, scene of many childhood weekends at his grandparents’ farm.

In 1947 his Detroit-area grandparents had bought 80 acres one mile east of Maple City, part of which they planted in cherries. Hoyt recalls with amusement, “My grandpa was a reformed character, so when my grandma kept stealing apples from the neighboring farm, he decided to buy the 40 acres across the road,” to make her an honest woman again. In addition to their orchards, they planted corn, and built “Corn Cottage,” where they would stay when they came up nearly every weekend from downstate. He explains that, for his hardworking German ancestors, farming was — incredibly — their recreation, their hobby. In the 1980’s his grandmother sold the 40 acres of apples and corn, and Hoyt eventually inherited half of the original cherry farm, although the outbuildings and water supply are long gone. He seems pleased that his land has returning to agricultural use, albeit in a different form.

Hoyt met Alesha two years ago, and they began to talk about letting her chickens run on his land. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” he laughs, looking around at the busily pecking poultry, amiable Nibbler, and the small but growing flock of sheep vigorously tearing at the spotted knapweed that grows so abundantly. By a curious coincidence, his mother had owned a yarn shop for many years, although Hoyt never plied the needle arts and vows never to learn to knit. However, he’s definitely in the agriculture game for the long-term, and the pair is already planning for autumn and beyond, including erecting fences and winter shelter for their ovine charges.

Despite a demanding lifestyle of caring for many animals, without the benefit of buildings for shelter or storage and without running water nearby, Alesha and Hoyt seem to be thriving as well as the animals. “You can’t have a bad day with animals, so you have to take care of yourself,” Alesha explains. She rises around 5:30 a.m. each day to the accompaniment of her roosters, feeds the animals, waters them with buckets hauled from Maple City, takes dog Pinky for a walk, then heads to one of several part-time jobs at the Rustic Inn, Cedar City Market or Pleva’s Meats. Hoyt releases the cooped chickens in the early afternoon — “so they’ll get used to laying eggs during the morning,” Alesha explains — and the two return in the late afternoon or early evening to complete their farm chores.

She also acknowledges the encouragement and assistance they’ve received from family, friends and neighbors. “All the people who’ve helped us are amazing,” Alesha enthuses. “The chicken coop was framed all in one day with donated materials from Terry Weber and John Wall, except the door and window,” which they salvaged from a Traverse City curbside. Weber helped move the coop to its present location, while Terri DeFilippo donated fencing and posts.

The young farmer has many ideas for future expansion, which include expanding her flock with multi-horned, variegated colored Jacob sheep; growing and selling organic produce from a road stand; and offering freezer cuts of lamb, as well as Boer goats for the ethnic and gourmet meat markets. She’s straightforward in her philosophy on the life cycles of farm animals.

“My whole thing is educating people about where their food comes from. I remember butchering day,” during her internship. She continues: “I wouldn’t want my children to grow up thinking chickens came from the grocery store.” Her customers, too, appreciate her efforts. “If anyone wants to know my growing practices, I’d be happy to let them see. Once they see all that goes into my product, they value it so much more.”

Posted by editor at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)

Collegiate stars endure preseason training on our dunes

By Maggie Meyers and Jacob Wheeler
Sun contributors

Late August is the time to think about returning to school — stock up on notebooks, pens and lunchboxes, and after months of sleeping in, actually obey the alarm clock and make a mad dash outside to catch the yellow bus. Or for college athletes, especially those whose seasons happen during the fall, late August can be the most grueling time of year.

The sweat-covered football player running stairs or bulking up in the weight room while dreaming about the Rose Bowl and all its California glory is a popular image. But if you’ve driven down country roads in Leelanau County this time of year, you’ve probably also come across entire college sports teams training, and bonding, in our midst, before their seasons kick into high gear.

For almost two decades now The Leelanau School, the private boarding school just north of Glen Arbor on M-22, has hosted collegiate athletic teams who choose to train amidst the beauty of Lake Michigan and the Sleeping Bear sand dunes, and among them a few semi-famous athletes. University of Michigan’s cross-country and track star Kevin Sullivan graced our presence during the mid-1990’s, gave pep talks to Leelanau School students and, legend has it, streaked the campus during one warm August evening to ring the senior bell. At the peak of his career Sullivan broke the four-minute mile and ran for Canada in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Michigan running coach Ron Warhurst initiated the preseason getaway in 1991 in order to help his team focus on the upcoming season. Since then, the women harriers and the Michigan volleyball team also have taken part in weeklong sessions here.

“Ann Arbor can be quite hectic this time of the year because of the massive amounts of people in town,” Warhurst says. “It’s kind of nice to get away from that, because we’re going to have to go back and face it for the next nine months. This is a nice enclosed area where we can really focus on what we're doing.”

Both Michigan and Michigan State’s cross-country teams return to Leelanau every year, as well as appearances by teams ranging from small schools like Kellogg and Grand Valley State to powerhouses like the University of Virginia. Leelanau’s director of summer programs Duane Petty spearheaded the relationship with these collegiate athletic programs, and though he has vacated his post after more than 15 years, this unique local connection will likely continue.

“Futbol” aficionados were treated to a hard-fought exhibition match earlier this month at the Keystone Road complex in Traverse City between the Virginia and Notre Dame women’s soccer teams, both of which are ranked among the top 10 in the country. The lady Cavaliers, who reached the quarterfinals last year, have trained at The Leelanau School four times since 2001. Their connection with the area is that head coach Steve Swanson grew up in West Bloomfield and is married to Leland-native and the first Miss Basketball of Michigan (1982) Julie Polakowski, about whom local hoops guru Don Miller can rave for hours.

Coach Swanson has long considered Leelanau County a great environment for a team to both focus on training and promote togetherness among teammates. “From a coaching standpoint, Leelanau County has lots of attractions,” says Swanson. Access to Lake Michigan and the dunes are perfect settings for activities during the team’s downtime that help the players decompress and bond as a team.

Not to mention the cooler temperatures here in the Upper Midwest, whereas the weather in Virginia in August often reaches 100 degrees.

While at Leelanau the lady Cavaliers trained twice a day and bathed their aching legs in Sleeping Bear Bay after every practice because, Swanson says, the water “serves well to recover the girls’ legs” after arduous practices. That fit well with his metaphor of using this training period as “putting the boat in the water,” to set a good precedent for the coming season.

Being here “fosters growth for the team because we are so literally isolated and not spread out across a campus,” says senior midfielder Kara Frederick. That “creates a natural cohesion among the teammates, with nothing to do outside of practice but enjoy the area.”

The Cavaliers’ scrimmage against the Fighting Irish, who drove all the way from South Bend just for the match, ended in a 3-0 defeat, but the opportunity to watch top-notch Division 1 soccer in our backyard was no disappointment for locals. In fact, word of the match spread like gospel throughout southern Leelanau County, thanks in part to “Uncle Joe,” the University of Virginia bus driver, who dined at various local establishments and raved about the lady Cavaliers to anyone who would listen.

Coach Steve Swanson hopes this relationship with the area continues to thrive with the commitment of the school, the University of Virginia, and the local community. “Leelanau School has been as good a facility as we could ever hope to find. We get more done in one week’s time here than anywhere else including our own backyard. We are extremely fortunate to work with such accommodating folks.”

The Michigan Daily contributed to this report.

Posted by editor at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)

The Petty’s departure is ripe in the Land of the Sleeping Bear

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

It’s the end of an era at The Leelanau School in Glen Arbor as Duane and Fiffy Petty are heading to Wichita, Kansas. Since 1990 both Pettys have been fixtures at the private high school from which all three of their children, Jason, Michael, and Erin, graduated.

In more than 16 years at Leelanau, Duane Petty wore numerous administrative hats: he has been the coach of a successful tennis program for all of those years, as well as serving as Athletic Director and Director of Summer Programs for 12 years, Dean of Students for 7 years, Director of Building & Grounds for five years, and Director of Admissions for five years. Duane also coached Junior Varsity basketball a couple of years, and has worked for five school presidents during his long tenure.

As a gifted and successful coach, Petty fondly recounts the statistics and the players that highlighted his career here. Duane was on Bill Hollenbeck’s football coaching staff at Glen Lake along with Mike Hill in 1994 when the Lakers won the state championship. “We had guys like Jamie Mazurek, Todd Ciolek, Mike Depuy, Jason Butz, Rob Semple, and they all played their roles perfectly,” Petty recalls. “Our German exchange student (Tom Brendelberger) kicked 51 of 53 extra points.” Coach Petty worked with the defensive backs and the offensive receivers on that team. “Mike Hill and Bill Hollenbeck really energized that team,” he adds. “Those guys really love football!”

At Leelanau, Petty’s tennis teams accumulated an unofficial dual match record of 89-76. “People race toward 100 wins in a coaching career,” he explains. “We had tremendous success in the 90’s, and in recent years we’ve had developmental teams.” From 1991 to 1995, Petty’s players went to the State Finals six times, once in number one singles (Derek Paquette) and five times as a team. “We won the Regionals here from ’91-‘94, and came in second in ‘95. Our best finish at State’s was eleventh out of 17 teams.”

In Duane Petty’s early years at Leelanau when the enrollment was around 100 students the school fielded teams in 13 competitive sports in the Cherryland Conference. “We had some great basketball teams in the ‘90’s,” Duane remembers, “and one year the Trent Duncan, Brian Monroe, Jason Nargis team went 22-2.” One of the highlights of those years was the ’96 District Soccer title. “Over the years the biggest successes were teams with a predominance of locals,” Petty muses. “On that soccer team 8 of the 11 starters were students from this area, like Nargis, Dan Herd, Jordan Bates, Adam Navarro, Michael Petty and Jacob Wheeler. In tennis that was also true, but there we also had a good compliment of outsiders.”

One of the characters Duane Petty particularly remembers is Brian Monroe. “He spent five years at the school because we had an eighth grade then, and he accumulated 27 or 28 varsity letters. Brian played on every boy’s team we offered, usually two or three teams per season. He was an incredible athlete, and that is one of the most amazing accomplishments I’ve every seen.”

As a footnote it should also be noted that Duane was the chairman of the Glen Arbor Township Park Commission from 1995 to the present. In that role he has been instrumental in the expansion of the awesome playground and the hugely popular tennis courts in the middle of town. Thanks, Duane!

As Director of Alumni Relations at Leelanau, Fiffy Petty was instrumental in the tremendous growth of a languishing program. “At my first reunion in 1991 there were only two people,” she laughs. “At the school’s seventy-fifth anniversary in 2005 there were 150!” Fiffy fondly remembers working with Willis Hawkins from the first graduating class of 1932. Willis was an executive at Lockheed for 65 years. “He designed the C-130 transport plane and worked on either the F-14 or F-16.” When Willis passed on in 2004, Fiffy was asked to speak at his memorial service. “I spoke to his Lockheed colleagues at Van Nuys Airport. That was my greatest honor.”

Other Leelanau School notables whom Fiffy counts as friends include the late Lane Smith, class of 1955, the Hollywood actor who played Perry White in “Lois & Clark” and Nixon in “The Final Days,” and who appeared in “My Cousin Vinny” and “The Mighty Ducks.” There’s also Dr. Martha Seeger, class of 1950, the first woman to be appointed to the Federal Reserve Board, for a 14-year term, by Ronald Reagan. And Walter Netsch, class of 1938, is the architect who designed the famous chapel at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

Fiffy particularly enjoyed working with Arthur Huey during her tenure at Leelanau, and she communicated with Cora Beals, who co-founded the school with her husband Skipper Beals. “The alums are family to me,” she says. “More than alumni, they have become friends, and that’s what happens with 15 years of calls and gatherings across the country.” Fiffy will continue to volunteer for the Leelanau Alumni Organization, attend gatherings, and help edit the newsletter “Manitou Passages.”

Duane Petty has already headed out to Wichita to become the Dean of Students and to do some coaching at the Wichita Collegiate School. “It is a private day school for pre-kindergarten thru twelfth grade,” Fiffy explains. “Arguably the top private day school in Kansas, Wichita Collegiate has top-notch academics, with 20 Advanced Placement classes, and athletics second to none. There are countless state championship trophies in their trophy case.” The school serves 1000 students, 260 in the high school, on a 42-acre campus.

“This is a great opportunity for Duane,” says Fiffy, who will stay on at Cherry Republic into the fall before joining him in Wichita. “We may just keep our house here in Glen Arbor so we can spend the summers here. Now, suddenly, Duane will have his summers off!” Godspeed and good luck, Duane and Fiffy Petty, and thanks for everything.

Posted by editor at 06:54 PM | Comments (0)

Dropping pounds like they’re going out of fashion

From staff reports

Linda Ihme posed the challenge last winter, and Dave Baxter answered. The proprietor of Leelanau Vacation Rentals promised a free elliptical machine to the employee who could lose the most weight between January 1 and July 1, and all winter and spring the slimmer-trimmer Dave resisted offers of free beer and pizza from his fellow colleagues who wanted to block his road to victory. As of July 1, Dave Baxter had lost a whopping 59 pounds, and is the proud owner of a new elliptical machine.

“Sometimes you just need a big incentive,” says Ihme. “We worked together and that made it easier. I’d encourage other businesses to do the same with their employees.”

Posted by editor at 06:33 PM | Comments (0)

From China to Empire, diplomats make a local home

By Helen Westie
Sun contributor

A diplomat couple residing in Beijing is the new owners of the former Bed and Breakfast on South Bar Lake just off LaCore Road in Empire. Bruce Quinn and Teresa Howes, former attaches at the American Embassy in Beijing, purchased the property from William and Susan Chamby, who bought the house and land from Dave and Shirley Thorogood 20 years ago. Before that, Tim Barr had moved the house from the National Park and sold it to the Thorogoods. At one time, five cottages were on the property and were occupied by Air Force personnel. These are gone now, but a single building still stands toward the lake, and the new owners hope to convert this into a sauna.

When these world travelers were confronted with the question, “why Empire?” their response was immediate. “Empire offered us everything we were looking for, both in a vacation destination as well as a permanent home,” according to Bruce. Teresa’s response was, “having grown up in this area, Kaleva and Brethren, I feel at home in Empire because everything is so familiar – the forests, the wildlife, the tranquility and the strong sense of community. It is completely opposite to our life overseas.”

At present, Bruce is the vice president for Rockwell Automation, Beijing, China, a division of a Milwaukee company that provides automation systems, power control and information solutions to factories. Teresa is an agricultural consultant for her own firm, Howes Associates.

Having spent the summer in Empire with their children, Conor, 14, and Caroline, 11, (Bruce’s from a former marriage), they are due to return to their present jobs. The children say they enjoyed the beaches. Like their parents, they also hold diplomatic passports and speak Chinese. Bruce and Teresa had the house remodeled somewhat, and painted themselves.

Bruce and Teresa have had remarkable careers. A few years out of high school, Bruce joined the military and, before long, was part of the U.S. Special Forces Division. He was often required to work independently in high stress or hazardous environments. He trained Special Forces medics and became an advisor to foreign militaries in Latin America. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the State University of New York in Albany and a master’s degree from Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts. On leaving the army, he taught social studies in junior high and high school for two years at the American-Nicaraguan School in Managua. He also taught evening and weekend courses in U.S. history, culture, and English as a second language at a national university. After this, he became an attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He advised U.S. companies and exporters on doing business in China. He traveled extensively throughout China; here he became acquainted with Teresa, also an attaché at the Embassy. After this, he became a Trade Negotiator for China in Washington, D.C. He had to monitor and enforce compliance with the World Trade Organization agreements among many other duties.

Teresa’s life also took her to faraway lands. She was an exchange student to Sweden when in high school in nearby Brethren. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in German and sociology, and received graduate assistantships to teach elementary and conversational German. After her undergraduate degree, she volunteered for the Peace Corps and was sent to Thailand where she designed, obtained funding for, and implemented projects on sericulture extension, clean water catchment and diversion systems and dry season irrigation in remote villages. She edited a monthly Peace After Volunteer publication. Interestingly, her mother Beverly Howes volunteered for the Peace Corps at the same time. She said she wanted her “own country” and was sent to Swaziland in Africa. Beverly, who lives in Oregon, visited Empire this summer.

After the Peace Corps, Teresa earned a masters degree in agricultural economics and landed a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She served as the agricultural attaché in China for three years, joining the U.S. Trade Representatives Office on her return to Washington to help negotiate China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. It was during this stint that Teresa and Bruce became an item, a couple so to speak. They moved to India together in 2003 where Bruce worked in the U.S. consulate and Teresa did consulting.

With 10 years of China experience under their belts, Bruce and Teresa were sent back to China last year. Before going, they “tied the knot”. They plan on remaining in China for the next two to four years. But the most exciting part of each year will be coming back to Empire. The whole family agrees.

Posted by editor at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)

Tutoring New Orleans’ students after Katrina

By Joanne Bender
Sun contributor

One year after the Gulf Coast fell victim to the most destructive and obvious effect of Global Warming that has hit the United States to date, the Glen Arbor Sun brings you the story of another local resident who traveled to the Deep South to help.

Answering the call for academic assistance from Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, 30 graduate and undergraduate students from Michigan State University, including Maria La Cross, 19, of Cedar, formed New Orleans Summer Project (NOSP) in June of this year and drove in vans from East Lansing to help. Faculty members accompanied them as well, led by director and organizer Dr. Joyce Grant who is a member of MSU’s music school faculty.

Maria graduated from Glen Lake High School in 2004 and is a junior at Michigan State. She is an Education major and plans to teach secondary English after graduation.

The tutors were assigned to a New Orleans school now called “MAX”, a combined institution of three uptown schools — St. Mary’s, St. Augustine and Xavier Preparatory, all of which have been out of operation since Katrina’s devastating hit on August 29 of last year. The principal is named Father Raphael.

The New Orleans students waiting for educational aid had been shifted to out-of-state schools or had not been in school at all for an entire school year. So the job of Maria and her co-workers was to teach a lot of material in a very short four-week time span.

Fortunately, the tutors from MSU were prepared and ready, dividing into six sub-groups and going right to work. “It was so sad to see the signs in the MAX school still in place for the 2005-2006 school year which read ‘Welcome Back’ and ‘We’re Going To Have a Good Year’,” she remembers.

“New Orleans looked like a war zone frozen in time.”

Maria’s tutoring assignment was with middle school children, and she assisted with two English classes and two Test Preparatory classes (for the SAT and ACT tests). She studied the material and was able to present her own lesson plans covering the established requirements.

Maria bonded with several of her students. Two of her favorites were Greg, a high school senior seeking a college music scholarship as he plays the tuba, and Daron, also a senior. Both boys were catching up on their studies in English III. They were unable to write a paper properly with an introduction, body and conclusion when Maria first met them. “They knew no mechanics of writing, but by the conclusion of the four-week class they both accomplished this,” she reports.

“Southern hospitality remains alive and well in New Orleans and we had some time to experience the culture there,” Maria adds. “‘Donna’s,’ a jazz club across from Louis Armstrong Park was one entertaining part of our trip.”

The group received a warm welcome from many Michigan State alumni during their stay, attending dinner and pool parties, another happy result of their tutoring trip. And they attended the inauguration of incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin and also saw Reverend Jesse Jackson.

While in New Orleans the group stayed in the St. John Birchman Orphanage, which is under the auspices of the Sisters of The Holy Family. The sisters live in FEMA trailers behind the building.

About her heart-warming experience Maria says, “I felt a loss when we left. We all enjoyed a real sense of belonging during our four weeks in New Orleans with the students. I wish I could have done more.”

She also hopes that when she visits again, the “piles of thrash, including hundreds of cars underneath will have been removed. These have been there for almost a year.”

Posted by editor at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)

Local artist profile: Harvey Gordon

By Corin Blust
Sun contributor

In grade three, Harvey Gordon looked around at the artwork of other students in his class and realized that he was pretty good in comparison to most of them. That was when it hit him that he could one day become a professional artist.

“I like drawing… I’ve just enjoyed it all of my life, and I still do,” Gordon told me over coffee.

Gordon paints with acrylics, but he was initially trained in oil painting because acrylics were not widely distributed until the early 1960’s, when they finally became available to him. He fell in love with the medium once he found it; its brilliant colors, fast drying ability, durability, and water solubility made it the perfect paint for Gordon, who didn’t like the hazardous chemicals that need to be used when painting with oils.

It has taken Gordon 40 years to develop and perfect the carefully planned glazing technique he uses when creating one of his paintings. He is currently painting on a heavyweight, extremely high-quality paper called museum board, which he seals with gesso to keep the paint from soaking in.

After sanding the gesso down, Gordon draws a picture on the board using a photograph he has taken as a reference. Then his unique technique begins.

“I use acrylic paint, very little paint, with acrylic gloss medium… I paint the drawing first in black and white, then I put the color on in transparent, single layers of yellow, red and blue,” explained Gordon. He never physically mixes the color together; “all the mixing that occurs in the painting is visual mixing,” he said.

This process is important because it provides a remarkably beautiful, luminous finish to the acrylic, a paint that is often visually flat and boring in the hands of inexperienced artists. Gordon’s paintings are reminiscent of stained glass because of the glowing intensity of his colors. They also remind the viewer of watercolor.

“There is a luminosity that you get in watercolor that is visible in my work as well because a lot of the white ground shows through,” clarified Gordon.

While working in his studio, Gordon uses fluorescent lighting. He does this because it is the best light to paint by, but it is a horrible light to view a painting in. When Harvey Gordon moves his work to a kinder light he is often genuinely surprised at the colors that have developed in his process.

“It even amazes me, some of the colors in my paintings. It’s that method, that technique that yields those colors — and of course what I’ve learned over 40 years of making them,” Gordon said.

His paintings will be nicely hung and well lit when they are displayed at Lake Street Studios’ Center Gallery from August 25-31. The works that will be on display will be exclusively new work, dating from about three years ago to the most recently finished piece, which at press time was still on Gordon’s easel in his studio.

Gordon draws a lot of his inspiration from the environment he finds himself in. He taught two-dimensional media at Glen Oaks Community College for 28 years before he and his wife, Barbara, relocated to Glen Arbor. There, he was attracted to painting things he saw on a regular basis: interiors and cityscapes.

What inspires me to paint “is probably a combination of two things: first of all, its my innate desire to paint paintings. And, its just the world I live in, and what is around me- not everything, but some things,” he said.

Cityscapes appeal to Gordon because of the rare mix of people often present on an urban street. “You get this wonderful… democratic vista because there are all kinds of people, from all kinds of backgrounds and socioeconomic backgrounds, and they are all there mixed together, and it makes it interesting,” Gordon told me.

A new subject that Gordon was inspired to take on in the last two years because of his new vicinity to Lake Michigan is the sunset, a notoriously difficult phenomenon to paint properly.

“I decided that, well, we live here and I can get to the lake in two minutes if there’s a sunset worth going to look at. So, I have been photographing sunsets and I have taken on a series of paintings of sunsets. And there will be some in the show,” he revealed.

Even though Gordon has enjoyed a successful painting career, exhibiting at least seven one person shows at top galleries in New York City and at museums and important galleries all over lower Michigan, he still counts a successful painting as the ultimate highlight of his career.

“The highlights occur in my studio, and not with respect to anything that happens to me or my work after it leaves the studio. Maybe there’s a sale, maybe there isn’t. Maybe there’s a big show, maybe there isn’t. But all that stuff is secondary to creating the best possible painting. I don’t see how it could happen any other way,” he explained.

Gordon grew up in Flint. He attended the University of Michigan and Cranbrook Academy of Art. He then received a fellowship at the University of North Carolina, where he earned his MFA.
Harvey Gordon’s work will be on display at the Lake Street Studio’s Center Gallery from August 25-31.

Posted by editor at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

The Secret Life of Melons

By Holly Wren Spaulding
Sun contributor

Working outside and tending our gardens many of us have noticed that the bees are active of late, in some cases aggressively defending their food sources and nesting areas. Bee and wasp killer is on display at the hardware store and for some among us, stings mean allergic swelling and emergency measures. But I cringe to think that the bees are regarded as a hazard and hassle of the season — that they are perceived as pests and treated to chemicals no matter what they are up to.

Domesticated around 7000 years ago, bees have long lived in collaboration with humans, providing us with sweet honey and pollinating our flowering food crops both in the wild and in our cultivated plots.

Pollination is the process by which an animal — usually a wild bee, though domestic honey bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, flies, beetles and other invertebrates can also do this job — carries pollen from one flower to another while gathering nectar. This pollen fertilizes the flower, thus ensuring that a fruit is eventually born.

Back in June a few of us transplanted melon seedlings into a 300-foot row on the farm where I work. We tucked them gently into little holes on top of heat reflecting black fabric, anticipating a variety of melons in by summer’s end. In late July the plants were flowering and it was time to remove the canopy of “remay” agricultural cloth, which protects the young plants from cooler temperatures and especially from pests.

Flowers, by definition, are pretty and sweet smelling — they need to get noticed by the roving bees and their appearance has evolved to function as a form of flirtation. When a melon blossom opens it has about eight hours to attract the affections of a bee. When the sun comes up, bees head out in search of nectar, making trips back and forth to the hive where they deposit what they have collected for the youngsters in the nursery. If a pollinator isn’t around to find those open blossoms, nothing will become of that particular effort at fruiting. When the temperatures cool at the end of day, blooms close and bees head home for the night. You can see why it is important to uncover the melons as soon as the flowers appear and why it is important that our pollinators be offered safe passage when they are doing what they do.

This week the first of the melons, a lovely little dark green one with an orangey red flesh called “sweet little flower” were ready for picking. We farm workers ate dripping, pretty chunks like summer itself while we went about our harvest.

According to the book Fatal Harvest, “animals provide pollination services for over three-quarters of the staple crop plants that feed humankind and for 90 percent of flowering plants in the world.” Interestingly, the pollination services provided by honeybees are estimated at 60 to 100 times more valuable in economic terms than the market price of honey. It may be obvious, but we need these pollinators in a serious way.

Having taken an interest in the supreme role the bees are playing in making these melons come into being, I was alarmed to read that the National Academy of Sciences has been considering adding honeybees to the endangered species list. What is killing off our precious pollinators? Habitat is in decline as wild places turn over to development and the widespread use of pesticides is not only killing the nasty insects around lawns, farms and gardens, but as we know those broad-based agricultural chemicals also annihilate the benevolent species.

Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock with watermelon seeds and bees around 1929. All made their way south and soon Florida was the country’s largest producer of melons and these days the crop has an estimated annual value of around $60 million. Beekeepers in Florida often rent their bees to the melon growers when the vines are flowering, ensuring that the plants are fertilized. Each depends upon the other.

I am reminded of that fundamental of ecology: relationship. When the pollinators find those emerging yellow blossoms in the melon patch, the ensuing exchange is critical to a successful crop; it also a useful metaphor for the cantaloupe lovers among us as we pass through the world, find what we need, and move on. We human worker bees need to remove the veil, let the sun in on the growing thing, and do our best to support our partners (bees among them) in the work of growing good food, and sustaining agricultural into the future. Likewise, we’ll want to bear in mind the other needs of our oft forgotten pollinators: undisturbed or re-wilding habitat for foraging, nesting and roosting; native plants for sustaining healthy populations of wild pollinators who travel to our farm in search of nectar; and a wide eyed awareness that all synthetic agricultural chemicals are the death knell for so much of what is required for keeping this elegant system alive.

We humans tend to be concerned for the health and future of our own small plot of fertile land, but we’d do well to be thinking in terms of the patchwork of land around us too — how is it being treated and what kinds of habits and policies make it so.

In an era when pesticides are used as a matter of course in most farming operations, our farm prefers to embrace the bug life that results in fertile crops and happy bees. In exchange for some bee magic, we reflect on how our human actions support (or undermine) the pollinators. These kinds of calibrations are what sound farming depends upon, as does watermelon in August.

Over the coming weeks, you may be eating food from your own garden or another local farm. The fruit of flowering plants is coming to light: beans, potatoes, squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and melons will bring us delight and nourishment. They are gifts from the bees, as much as they are the produce of good soil, much water, the sun and many human hands.

Posted by editor at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

Props to Interlochen literary symposium

Editor’s note: teacher and writer Jeremiah Chamberlin and his wife Natalie Bakopoulos were artists in residence at the Glen Arbor Art Association in early June. Look for an excerpt from Chamberlin’s historical novel set in the cherry orchards of northern Michigan in a future issue.

To the Glen Arbor Sun,

The last weekend of April I spent three days at Interlochen, my first visit to the academy. I attended the inaugural session of the "Between the Lakes" Literary Symposium, which I certainly hope will become an annual event, because I had a great time. It was organized primarily by Pete Colson and Anne-Marie Oomen, although I suspect a lot of other folks were involved in the arrangements too, including a faithful cadre of local volunteers. The symposium was geared towards "writers, readers and educators."

I'm a lifelong reader, and also a writer, or at least I'm trying to be one, after a career with the Defense Department. I went mostly to meet folks and to hear some good writing, and the weekend delivered on both counts. Judith Minty, a former poet-in-residence at IAA, gave the opening keynote address, an insider's history of the creative writing program there. Later she talked poetry and read some of her own, which brought both tears and laughter, often in quick succession. Robert Hass, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, gave a couple of wonderful talks and read some poems too. Nick Delbanco, a U of M-based novelist, read from his works and also talked quite movingly of his late friend, John Gardner, a favorite author of mine who lived large and died young. Doug Stanton read a just-written unpublished essay on "Fishing and Terrorism." Unlikely prose partners, I know, but wow! Watch for this piece, folks. It is a small masterpiece about fishing, family, friendship, and -- well, terrorism. He also talked about and read from his forthcoming book, “The Horse Soldiers.” Again, wow! I can't wait for this book, post 9-11 history that reads like a novel. Traverse City, be proud. Liesel Litzenburger gave a wonderful talk about writing, publishing and favorite books, and read from her new novel, “The Widower,” which I've added to my "to read" list. Academy faculty members, Jack Driscoll and Mike Delp, affectionately kidded and praised each other and both read from their recent works. I've since read Driscoll's newest novel, “How Like an Angel,” and enjoyed it immensely.

There were a raft of other writers on hand for the weekend, all of them talented, but one who stood out among the "emerging voices" was Jeremiah Chamberlin, who read a story and gave a seminar on "The Responsibility of Writing about History and Place," which was SRO both sessions and even ran over its allotted times. This young man is a dynamic and exciting speaker, and he can write too. Remember that name. You'll be hearing from him, I'm sure.

I loved Interlochen. I wonder if the students there realize how fortunate they are to have a place like that where their special talents can flourish and bloom. I got a personal guided tour of the campus by Barb Sandys from the president's office and I couldn't have found a more enthusiastic booster. Thanks for the whole weekend, Interlochen. I hope you do it again. I'll try to be there.

Sincerely,
Tim Bazzett (author of ReedCityBoy and SoldierBoy)
Reed City, MI

Posted by editor at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)

Green funerals an earthy alternative

By Linda Jo Scott
Sun contributor

While our country is focused on end-of-life issues, perhaps it is a good time to look at burial practices, as well. Are you aware that an ordinary funeral costs between $6,000 and $10,000? And that with steel caskets and concrete vaults, we aren't returning our bodies to our mother earth for thousands of years?

According to Mary Woodsen, Vice President of the Pre-Posthumous Society of Ithaca, New York and freelance science writer, “Each year in the U.S., we bury 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, which includes formaldehyde; 180,544,000 pounds of steel, in caskets; 5,400,000 pounds of copper and bronze, in caskets; 30 million board feet of hardwoods, including tropical woods, in caskets; 3,272,000,000 pounds of reinforced concrete in vaults; 28,000,000 pounds of steel in vaults.

In an effort to eliminate all of this waste, a movement for “green funerals” is already strong in Britain and is beginning to catch on in this country. There are already over 200 “green” or “woodland” cemeteries in England and just under 100 in this country. In these wooded areas, people can be buried in burial shrouds made of natural fibers, or cardboard or wood coffins, provided the wood comes from “sustainable forests.” Or they can be cremated and their ashes can be placed in these places of beauty.

Instead of conventional gravestones, the family can plant indigenous wildflowers or a tree to mark the burial spot--or simply place a natural, uncut rock as a marker. If the family wishes, it can physically carry the body to the site, dig the grave, and lovingly return the loved one to the earth.

Dr. Billy Campbell of Westminster, South Carolina, has established Ramsay Creek Preserve, a 32-acre “green” or “woodland” cemetery. Though religion is not a necessary element at Ramsay Creek, Dr. Campbell has moved an old chapel onto the grounds to be restored for use by people of all faiths. Archives will be kept in the chapel of the life histories of all who are buried at Ramsay Creek.

Woodland cemeteries also provide an answer to space problems, for they exist both as natural places of beauty and as burial sites.

Are there “green cemeteries” in Michigan? According to Suzanne Jolicoeur, Cemetery Commissioner of the State of Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth, “there are cemeteries here which do not require vaults, and if the body is disposed of within 48 hours, no embalming is required.” Jolicoeur does not know of any cemetery in Michigan, however, which would accept a biodegradable casket without a vault. “You could get sinkholes and people could fall and injure themselves.”

“People can bury on their own property,” says Charlotte mortician, Charles L. Green, Green. “The health department says it's fine, so long as the death is recorded. It's like with farm animals; you need to bury them deep. Of course it could be a problem if the land changes hands. The new people might not want people to come around to visit the site.”

A person who wants a “green funeral” would need to inform family members in advance. An actual site could be chosen, and the family could create a ceremony in total harmony with nature and the cycle of life.

See “Mother Earth News,” April/May 2003; “Caring for the Dead: Your Final Act of Love” by Lisa Carlson, “Guidebook for Creating Home Funerals” by Jerri Lyons; “Dealing Creatively with Death, A Manual of Death Education and Simple Burial” by Ernest Morgan or go to web sites www.crossing.net; www.finalpassages.org; or www.memorialecosystems.com for more information.

Posted by editor at 12:10 AM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2006

Los Gatos to purr through Lake Street Studios

From staff reports

As part of the resurgence of performance art at the Lake Street Studios, and for this year’s Glen Arbor Art Association benefit concert, the Los Gatos will perform behind the studios across the street from Cherry Republic on Saturday, August 19 at 7:30 p.m. Los Gatos is a Latin jazz ensemble led by percussionist Pete Sears and also featuring a kunga, bass and keyboard. “They are a quintet with vibes,” says Harry Fried, who put together this concert. “Very happening, upbeat and danceable.” Los Gatos are the house band at Ann Arbor’s well-known Firefly Club and play everything from Latin versions of jazz standards to salsa music.

“This is the closest you’ll get to riding a Central American chicken bus in Glen Arbor,” Harry predicts.

Tickets for the Los Gatos concert cost $15 in advance or $20 at the door for adults and $10 in advance or $17 at the door for students. Admission is free for children 12 and under. Advance tickets can be purchased at the Lake Street Studios or at the Glen Arbor Art Association until August 12. Bring chairs and blankets.

Posted by editor at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

Wings of Wonder: Predators need love too

By Christina Campbell
Sun contributor

Pearl was hit by a car and lost full use of her fingers. Iain was poisoned, and now he has coordination problems from the resulting brain damage. Sage was tangled in barbed wire and sustained massive scarring.

Pearl and Iain are permanently disabled red-tailed hawks, and Sage is a great-horned owl who can never be returned to the wild. But they live full, healthy lives as part of educational programs run by Wings of Wonder (WoW), a non-profit raptor rehabilitation, education and research center near Empire.

WoW founder and raptor guru Rebecca Lessard brings these rehabilitated but disabled predatory birds into schools, libraries, and other community forums to teach people about the beauty and brains behind the talons. Last year she gave over 90 talks to a total of almost 8,000 people. The audience may arrive intimidated by the gruesome arch of Simon the turkey vulture’s head, but by the time they leave Rebecca’s presentation, they know that turkey vultures are “the Labrador retrievers of the raptor world” — playful, social, and the bird that everyone in the flight enclosures can get along with.

Simon enjoys playing with cardboard boxes and Barbie dolls. Born without primary feathers — the feathers on the tips of his wings, the equivalent of fingers in people — Simon could never survive in the wild, but he is an amiable part of Rebecca’s educational entourage. And he’s smart, too, like most raptors. Left alone and loose in the hospital one day, he found a sealed package of construction paper, opened it up, pulled out only the orange sheets, and shredded them to his satisfaction, leaving the unappealing blues, greens, reds, and blacks untouched.

But before a bird can become part of the WoW traveling educational program, it usually arrives at Wings of Wonder injured, unhealthy, and in need of rehabilitation. Not many bird centers take on the rehabilitation mission, because it is so financially and logistically draining. Although sometimes a couple weeks will go by without a new bird arriving at WoW, on any one day they might receive four, five or six raptors all in need of immediate medical attention. The stressed birds are brought into the WoW hospital, which is in the original cottage built on the property. The owl, hawk, kestrel, vulture or eagle is examined on a table and then stabilized with fluid therapy, medication or bandages. Some birds are infested with maggots that must be removed at breakneck speed before they cause irreversible damage. Once stabilized, the patient is brought to one of eight area vet clinics that donate their services to Wings of Wonder.

WoW’s vet volunteers fixed the leg and wing of Lola the red-shouldered hawk. Red-shoulders are a threatened Michigan species, so Rebecca is watching Lola carefully to see if she will recover enough to be released into the wild, to join the legions of birds released by WoW back into their natural habitats, including bald eagles and red-tailed hawks.

Some young barred owls released this May still hang around the trees above the Wings of Wonder flight enclosures and screech when they hear Rebecca’s voice, hoping she will feed them some mice. Rebecca tells them they have to hunt their own now. During their baby days in the flight enclosures, they were mentored by two grown barred owls who taught the babies to hunt live mice placed on the ground by Rebecca.

Even the smallest raptors have piercing-sharp talons, Rebecca explains to audiences as she displays items from her bag o’ feet. After the lecture, people can pick up palm-sized eagle feet, thumb-sized saw-whet owl feet, and raptor feet of all sizes in between. The skin is scaly and would look dinosaur-ish if not for the ruffles of silk-soft feathers coming down the leg, which in some hardy species stretch all the way down to the bird’s ankle like little leg-warmers.

Of course the live birds are the stars of the show; Rebecca travels with several to every event. The raptors each have their own wooden travel crate, which they recognize even though to human eyes, all the boxes look the same. Ruby the one-eyed American kestrel loves to go to shows and jumps eagerly into her crate every time. She was fist-trained after only two days, unlike many raptors that require weeks or months of fist training and gradual public exposure before they are ready to become “educational birds”.

Currently the public’s only exposure to the Wings of Wonder birds is through these traveling lectures, but that is about to change. Rebecca is working with The Leelanau Conservancy to move WoW’s educational component to the Conservancy’s new DeYoung Natural Area, a historic farmstead that will house Michigan’s first-ever public raptor center. If all goes as planned, display enclosures could be constructed as early as next spring. The move allows WoW to share resources with other non-profits and to give back to the northern Michigan community for the years of support it has provided to Wings of Wonder.

Without public participation, WoW could not help as many birds as it does. The center is not equipped to go out and pick up every bird that needs help, especially when those patients are in Alpena or south of Cadillac. Except in the cases of bald eagles and turkey vultures, WoW relies on the person who discovers the bird to transport it to Wings of Wonder. Rebecca or a volunteer will talk the rescuer through the rescue process on the phone. One woman who found a red-tailed hawk was at first terrified to touch it — hawks don’t often weigh more than four pounds, but with their feathers they can look bigger and scarier — but after talking with Rebecca she walked up to the bird with a towel and gardening gloves, picked it up, and drove it to Wings of Wonder “with a big cheese-eating grin on her face” according to Rebecca, because she felt so empowered. Such stories are not uncommon among WoW’s customers, who include ordinary people who have rescued Great Horned Owls.

You’re most likely to run across a sick or injured raptor in autumn. “Immature raptors are literally falling out of the sky from starvation,” says Rebecca. These immatures are not yet very good at hunting and often cannot catch enough food to offset the migration energy expended.

What should you do if you run across a raptor that seems in need of help? First, determine if animal really needs rescuing. A baby alone is not necessarily a baby abandoned. If you are not sure, call an animal rescue center, a veterinarian, an animal control agency, or the Department of Natural Resources. Any of them can link you up with a licensed wildlife rehabilitator such as Rebecca. In this area, you can call 911 and get linked up with Wings of Wonder directly. If you see that the animal is obviously injured, do remove it from the wild immediately and carefully. Contact one of the above-mentioned animal care agencies as soon as possible.

Don’t try to rehabilitate an animal yourself — despite a caregiver’s best intentions, one mistake may cost the animal its life. It is also illegal to care for any wild animal unless you have a state and/or federal permit. Wings of Wonder greatly appreciates the northern Michigan community’s ongoing enthusiasm for raptors. The best way to help a needy bird is to call a professional. If you haven’t found an ailing raptor but still want to help, some options are to become a Wings of Wonder member. All membership donations directly support the operational expenses of rehabilitating the birds. WoW also always needs volunteers for cleaning, educational programs, and rescues. For more information, see www.wingsofwonder.org.

Posted by editor at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)

The love story behind Cedar’s Longview

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor

Asked how she found herself working for Leelanau County vintner, Alan Eaker, Longview Winery’s tasting room manager Kathy Meteyer, says simply, “I love wine.”

Take one sip of the new winery’s bright and fruity Riesling, or silky Pinot Gris or delightfully complex Pinot Noir, (all 2005 award-winners), and it’s apparent why she loves this wine.

“We won 11 medals before we opened,” Kathy says of the 2005 vintage. In fact, eight of the winery’s 12 offerings, (entered in one regional and two international competitions), received at least one gold, silver or bronze award. The tasting room, which opened its doors in June, is located next to the new Cedar Rustic Inn restaurant operated by Alan’s step-son, Aaron Ackley, and Aaron’s wife, Nikki and featured in the previous issue of the Glen Arbor Sun.

A retired art department chair and ceramics professor, Alan didn’t know how to grow grapes or make wine nine years ago. Aaron says his step-dad’s passion for both stems from memories of a childhood spent in Big Sur and an abiding interest in wineries and vineyards of that California region.

According to Kathy, the winery and its name have a love story behind them. Alan, then living in Florida, and Linda Ackley, a bronze sculptor living in East Lansing, met at an art function and began a long-distance relationship. At some point, Linda called Alan and told him that their arrangement couldn’t possibly work.

“Honey, honey, you have to take the long view,” Alan replied.

The two eventually married, and Linda re-located to Florida. Coming home from work one day before his retirement, Alan told his wife he loved her and asked if he could do anything for her. Linda, who fondly remembered her time spent as an art intern in Leland, said, “Yes, you can buy me a farm in Leelanau County.”

Alan complied by purchasing 103 acres near Gills Pier, next to a 40-acre vineyard owned by Charlie Edson of Bel Lago Winery. Alan, intrigued and excited by the sight of his neighbor’s grapes, planted vinifera, (old-world grapes grown from proven European stock), and hybrids, (of vinifera and North American grapes), on 10 of his acres, with help from his neighbor and mentor, Elmer Kalchik. From 2001 through 2004, Alan sold his grapes exclusively to Bel Lago.

Today, with the help of winemaker Shawn Walters of Leelanau Cellars, Alan makes wine from grapes grown on his property and fruit wines from apples and cherries picked on Elmer’s orchard. Julius Kalchik provides the honey used in Alan’s cherry mead, the first commercially-produced mead, (fermented honey), offered for sale by a Leelanau County winery. Kathy helps bottle and label the wines. The labels are Alan’s design.

A visit to Longview Winery’s tasting room is not a humbling experience. You don’t have to know a lot about wine to enjoy your visit. The feeling is friendly and casual. The mahogany bar and wood cabinetry are beautiful without being pretentious. Kathy and her assistant, Channing, (a Cedar native), smile and invite you inside. Step up to the bar and taste fruit-of-the-vine without fear. Enjoy a locally-made Charles Layton dark chocolate truffle with your sip of cherry mead or ice wine. As the winery promises, each bottle has a memory of Leelanau inside. That’s a gold-medal winner.

Longview Winery Tasting Room is located at 8697 Good Harbor Trail in Cedar. Call (231) 228-2880 or visit www.longviewwinery.com. It’s open May through October, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday and Noon-6 p.m. on Sundays. Call for winter/spring hours.

Posted by editor at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)

Find Leelanau’s heart in Maple City

By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor

Like many a hardworking resident of Maple City, located in the heart of Leelanau, those wishing to sample the charms of the county’s tiniest hamlet should, as Lewis Carroll said, “Begin at the beginning, and go on from there.”

Start with an invigorating 6 a.m. workout at the Maple City Health and Fitness Center, located at the big red schoolhouse just west of town on Burdickville Road (County Road 616). Drop-in visitors are welcome, and monthly, annual, student and senior citizen memberships are available. Manager Char Blonshine will help set you up with Trotter Weight equipment, treadmills, stair climbers, bikes and Precor Transports. Take in an aerobics session with fitness trainer Camille DePalma Frixen, or WalkNTone in the full court gym, where drop-in volleyball and basketball can also be played. After a guts-to-glory workout, soothe tired muscles on the innovative new Migun Massage Bed, then clean up in the locker room showers before heading to downtown Maple City in search of breakfast. Before leaving, however, check out the Glen Lake Library’s annex in the Fitness Center, when patrons are on the honor system to borrow and return a selection of books that is updated periodically by library volunteers.

Just south of the intersection of Maple City Road (County Road 667) and Bellinger Road (County Road 616), Pegtown Station restaurant — named after the historic role the town once played in manufacturing lumber products — embraces the old-time atmosphere of the former “Cash Variety Store” with red plaster walls, wainscoting, and well-patinated hardwood flooring. Feast on a farmer’s omelet, complete with sourdough or whole wheat toast made from scratch, while enjoying the Foothills blend of the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company, and watch the train whiz by overhead on tracks that circle the dining room’s perimeter. Pegtown’s lunch and dinner menus are worth a return visit, with a wide variety of hot and cold sub sandwiches on homemade buns, dinner baskets, and specialty pizzas, including such exotica as the “Philly Cheese Steak” pizza with roast beef, mozzarella, onions, and peppers, or “The Greek,” laden with garlic-infused oil, onions, feta, fresh spinach leaves, tomatoes, black olives, mozzarella and artichoke hearts on handmade dough. Pegtown Station is open year-round with extensive hours, and closed on Mondays.

For a larger lunch or dinner venue, seek out the Maple Leaf Restaurant, back “uptown” at the historic red schoolhouse that matriculated generations of Leelanau children (writer Kathleen Stocking is one distinguished alumna). The Maple Leaf plays to its strengths with organic and local foods in season in a casual yet elegant setting, classic homemade pizzas, and beers, spirits and fine local wines. Weekly specials include Friday night perch and prime rib on Saturdays, while Sunday brunch features a comprehensive feast at a reasonable price. Open from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. daily, and closed on Wednesdays.

Gabe’s Market anchors one corner of Maple City’s main intersection at Bellinger and Maple City Roads, across from the post office. Owners Mike and Kathy Gabourie offer a full grocery store, as well as their own smoked meats — sausages, hotdogs, and to-die-for brats — and a dazzling array of homemade beef, turkey and chicken jerkies, including extra-hot, teriyaki and Cajun flavors, perfect for day hikers, campers and casual snackers. Local produce can often be found at Gabe’s; currently, Tom Shimek’s bi-colored corn is winging its way out the door.

Do-gooders and feel-gooders meet at the Cedar-Maple City Lions Club (just east of Gabe’s on Bellinger Road), next to the enclosed playground that club members created several years ago for public enjoyment. Weekly bingo on Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. complements frequent weekend pancake breakfasts, dinners and dances that raise funds for the community, including visual aids for the sight-impaired, and academic and music camp scholarships for Glen Lake School students. The Lions will next host a grilled steak and chicken dinner on August 19, from 4-8 p.m.

Fill up the gas tank at MC Shortstop gas station and convenience store before setting off west on Burdickville Road in search of the great outdoors. The cultivated landscape benefits from the attentions of the Westover Market plant nursery, where Bruce and Gail Westover have nurtured their labor of love for over a dozen years on five acres. Choose from shrubs, trees and a stunning selection of perennials, including “Doubledecker” purple coneflower, peonies, hostas and more, as well as berries in season, fertilizer and garden accessories. As summer swings into August, Westover’s offers many specials and inventory reductions, perfect for filling the late-season garden’s gaps.

The final stop of the Maple City Tour takes place one mile west of town, in the emerald gem of the county’s Parks and Recreation system. Myles Kimmerley Park boasts a driving range, disk golf course, and the one-mile long, wooded Pat Hobbins Hiking Trail, as well as activities for families that range from softball, soccer and tennis, to grilling and picnicking under the pavilion near the kids’ playground. Community volunteers as well as county employees help to maintain the park, with recent plantings of flowering trees and perennial beds. Artists and photographers seeking coveted long views of land and skyscapes can also find scope for their work here, amid the rolling green beauty of Leelanau’s heart.

Posted by editor at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

A local student’s visit to the Costa Rican rainforest

By Joanne Bender
Sun contributor

Wanting to step out of her comfort zone and pursue an interest in conserving the environment, Lindsey Webber, 19, of Glen Arbor, a 2004 graduate of Glen Lake High School, now a junior at Western Michigan University, heard about an organization called International Student Volunteers during a Communications class.

It was then that an idea popped into her head. An effective way to move from her comfort zone and an opportunity to meet new people and go someplace all on her own AND to study ecology and conservation would be to sign up with this group for a month during this summer.

So, she did.

This idea flew her to San Jose, Costa Rica and a “crazy cab ride” to Heredia, in June. Her chosen project was “Proyecto Carey”, a two-week long research venture focusing on the conservation of endangered species of frugivores (“fruit eaters”) in the Osa Peninsula, south of Heredia on the Pacific Ocean, “and their role in the regeneration of tree species through seed dispersal.” Information learned is used to help establish wildlife conservation priorities and strategies and to increase public awareness of “the importance of maintaining healthy populations of spider monkeys and other frugivores in the area.”

“If there are no seeds, which are spread by a variety of monkeys and other animals there will be no trees, thereby destroying the rainforest, which is the main source of oxygen for all of the earth,” Lindsey explains. “Cut down one tree and it will take many, many years for it to grow back to the size it was when leveled.”

Lindsey was a member of a group of 10 students, all with a similar interest.

The bonding was quick and friends were made. Conservation was discussed daily and hikes taken, following the frugivores’ paths. Three trails were trekked … coded yellow, red and blue. Yellow paths were in the middle of the forest, blue were along the beach and red indicated open spaces where the sun reached the ground.

Results were collated daily from the students’ notes by Pablo, the native group leader, (who warned that “they might encounter cockroaches, scorpions and vipers”), for a study the findings of which will be published when finished in a few years. Pablo keeps track of what the spider monkeys, the white-faced monkeys, the howler monkeys are eating and the tree by which the seeds are deposited. The tree is then marked with blue tape. The group also followed paths of the toucan, the Mc caw and the Kuwaiti (a raccoon/mix), for the same research.

Daily experiments were conducted in the “gaps “(areas where the sky is in view). Plates were set up filled with nutmeg seeds. Land crabs and other animals ate them. Results of the study, to ascertain whether there will be more tree seeds in gaps or dark areas will be available in four years.

While doing volunteer work, the group lived in “Panaquenes,” in a lodge-like structure, with no electricity, that is privately owned where some 20 people, men, women and children, reside along with many stray dogs. A favorite was “Lobo,” a Husky-mix who attached himself to the group and followed them everywhere.

Rice and beans were available for every meal, sometimes spaghetti was served and breakfast consisted of cereal with warm milk (no refrigeration available) or fried bread “which tasted a bit like French fries,” Lindsey remembers. They drank more TANG than water as the latter was laced with chlorine.

Rise and shine time was 5 a.m. each day. Two-hour lunch breaks were welcome. Following their meal there was time for the beach, reading and card playing. Each evening found the tired group playing games, a favorite of which is “Captured,” which Lindsey promises to teach this reporter.

The second two weeks of the month-long visit to Costa Rica offered an Adventure Tour where participants were able to “experience their environment, and to study eco-tourism, a promotion of the Costa Rican government, according to Lindsey. Returning to Heredia the 10 volunteers joined 20 other students who spent volunteer hours with other projects.

The Adventure Tour included whitewater rafting in Rio Pacuare, and southeast to “Selva Bananito Lodge”, then on to the rainforests of the Caribbean region, one of the “top eco-lodge destinations in the world,” (reports the brochure).

Lindsey was unable to accompany the group to Tortuguero to view the sea turtles because of a very swollen foot caused by a cut during the whitewater-rafting trip. Lindsey and new friend, Kim, who is studying nursing at Arizona State University, were looking for a clinic when they happened to meet a guided group of tourists, one of whom was a doctor. After examining the foot, an antibiotic was given to Lindsey (Kim read the sealed package label to make sure the ingredients were accurate) and then a lesson was learned. Up until this encounter Lindsey was unable to swallow pills. The doctor told her to “either swallow the antibiotic or go to the hospital.” The pills were taken … no problem.

“White water rafting was my scariest experience,” Lindsey recalls. “Zip lining in Monteverde was my favorite.” The group zip-lined from 10 and then 11 platforms. “One line was half a mile long and the zip went 40 miles an hour … above the clouds. We climbed a 400-foot spiral stairs to get to the platform.

“We rappelled rocks next to a waterfall, and there was a 90-foot free fall … then we had to climb up a dangling ladder to get to the top again,” the young adventurer fondly remembers.

Other places were visited during those second two weeks. Then the group returned to Heredia to end their adventure and prepare to fly to their homes via San Jose, to Miami and then to the United States and Canada. Lindsey enthusiastically summed it up: “This was the best experience of my life so far. I met many great and interesting people from all over. I took part in activities I never thought I would ever try. I definitely got out of my comfort zone and feel more capable of relating to people I’ve not met before and trying new ventures. I have new friends with whom I will continue to keep in touch. And my knowledge of the rainforest and its importance to world ecology is of major significance in my understanding of the importance of preserving it.”

Next stop for Lindsey will be as a student at the American Intercontinental University in London for the 2006 fall term. Then she will return to Western Michigan where she is majoring in Film, Video and Media Studies.

Posted by editor at 07:55 PM | Comments (0)

“Looking for Mrs. Boizard”

By Barb Kelly
Sun contributor

Grace Dickinson Johnson, Joanne Rettke and Barb Kelly paid a visit in June to the late Mrs. E.M. Boizard (1828-1911), formerly of Miller Hill. All admired the lovely wild roses that grow plentifully in Mrs. Boizard’s garden, as well as the fruit trees that pay homage to this resourceful woman who moved to Glen Arbor in 1863, with her daughter, Marietta, in tow.

I have been looking for Mrs. Boizard since I read the treasure of a book, The Boizard Letters: Letters From A Pioneer Homestead, edited by Julia Terry Dickinson and Jo Bolton, with illustrations by Grace Dickinson Johnson (I purchased my copy at The Cottage Book Shop). Searching for Mrs. Boizard morphed over the years from a casual pastime to a Holy Grail kind of mission, and I would spend big chunks of my precious two-week vacation in Glen Arbor each year traipsing around the Tucker Lake and Miller Hill area described in the book as the site of her old log cabin, looking for signs of her. I was spurred on by the fact that Julia Dickinson states in the book that she and her daughter, Grace, actually found the place. The book contains simple, stunning illustrations by Grace to prove it. This was real motivation. For years, though, I only saw a lot of trees, a lot of swamp and a lot of mosquitoes. Nevertheless I persevered.

During my explorations I stumbled across many signs of the early White pioneers’ life in the Glen Arbor area, but I often didn’t know what I was looking at. Also, I was so obsessed with finding Mrs. Boizard that everything I came across became something owned or used by her, in my fertile, Irish imagination. A large, rusted, complicated machine with gears and wheels, which had come to a halt just south of Tucker Lake, came to be, in my mind, “Mrs. Boizard’s logging machine.” But I’m from the big city, so who knows? It could just as well been Mrs. Boizard’s egg-sorter, or Mrs. Boizard’s cat-herder. The exciting thing was that everything came to be a sign of Mrs. Boizard’s presence. A beer bottle? “Mrs. Boizard’s beer bottle” (a real find, since she signed a temperance pledge on May 1, 1878, according to the book). A rusted bucket? “Mrs. Boizard’s berry-picking bucket” or more likely what she used to carry those empties deep into the woods to hide them.

An exciting find last year was “Mrs. Boizard’s shovel.” Just off a nearby local road there is a huge tree that has grown around a shovel so that the shovel is impossible to budge. It rests not just against the tree, but into the tree so that handle and spade both are encased in the tree’s enveloping bark. Some long-ago slacker set that shovel against the tree and blew off his chores for, say, 30 years. Now he has the perfect excuse: “Dude, the tree ate my shovel! Guess I don’t have to dig that hole after all.”

Or here’s another explanation for the “tree that ate the shovel”: In a letter to her husband, left behind in Chicago to earn a living, Mrs. Boizard writes, “If you possibly can send me a Shovel like the one I had, but I don’t care about it being so large. When we went to Chicago we let Mr. Tucker have one, our other one. There are none in the place. (April 14th, 1870).

Well, yes there are, Mrs. B. Just check out the tree where “Mr. Tucker” left that other shovel of yours. Oops, too late.

Along the way, I found other signs of the pioneers to this area. Hidden in plain view is a Fisher family tombstone, along with three graves eerily sunken into the sandy soil. John Fisher was — guess what? — Mrs. Boizard’s landlord. Really.

So, finding the site of her nineteenth century log cabin last month, deep in the mosquito-infested woods at the base of Miller Hill, was the crowning event of years of looking for Mrs. Boizard. While during all my previous traipsing and tromping, my heart would quicken at every imagined symmetrical rise of land or, alternatively, every indentation that could possibly have been Mrs. Boizard’s root cellar or cistern, there was nothing subtle or imagined about this site: a four-square rise of land that once held high her log cabin (140 years ago), along with the adjacent clearing so often described in Mrs. B’s letters to her husband, where she raised potatoes and squash, lima beans and cucumbers, greens and beans, and where her pig wandered, her chickens pecked, and her dogs romped. Be still my joyful heart.

The letters that launched my search — letters back and forth from Mrs. to Mr. Boizard from Glen Arbor to Chicago — and how they came to be found, is another amazing story in itself and one I’ll briefly tell here, but you can read more about it in the book. The old Westcott home behind the Glen Arbor Township Hall was being torn down. Most of the furniture had been hauled off and whoever did so dumped the contents of the drawers everywhere. Well, Julia Dickinson and Jo Bolton, intrepid anthropologists that they were — that’s my word: Grace’s word for them is “junk diggers” (same thing as far as I’m concerned) — scooped up what turned out to be an amazing cache of letters from the nineteenth century, some with very familiar names like “Fisher” and “Tucker” and “Westcott”, and others with unfamiliar names — like “Boizard.” Julia Dickinson painstakingly transcribed each and every one of these faded letters with their flowery script; Jo, Grace and she arranged each one in chronological order; and Grace created illustrations that illuminate and amplify the content and narrative flow of the letters (it was published in 1993 by the Empire Heritage Group). This book not only sent me on a wonderful adventure, it also brought me into contact with many who are the current chroniclers, story-tellers, memory-keepers, archivists and lovers of this Land of Leelanau and its compelling lore. These people are the worthy descendents of Mrs. Eleanor Magill Boizard, letter-writer and Glen Arbor pioneer.

Posted by editor at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)

Fettes couple rejuvenates Stu Stu Studio

By Corin Blust
Sun contributor

Tucked away on Aylsworth Street in Empire are Cheryl and Thomas Fettes, two artists enamored with the depth and luminescence of their respective media. Cheryl’s current medium is fused glass, though she has been working with glass in different ways for about 30 years. Thomas began painting abstract encaustics three years ago.

After Cheryl’s first class in glasswork, she thought she didn’t have much talent for working with cut glass, but loved it so she kept playing with it anyway. Then she found her niche in mosaics and fused glass.

“I was never that good at soldering and foiling and all that kind of stuff, but I kept doing it over the years, and then the mosaic thing started and I just fell right into it. The first one I ever made someone bought right out from under me, and it wasn’t for sale,” remembers Cheryl.

Her mosaics kept getting bigger, more elaborate, and heavier as they evolved “from birdbaths to benches to obelisks.” Then Thomas got Cheryl a kiln for Christmas that ignited her current obsession with glass fusing.

“A new love and a new way of playing with glass was born,” she continues.

After experimenting with the kiln for about six months, Cheryl went to New York and attended classes in glasswork at Hot Glass Horizons and Corning Glass Works Studio. There she learned more about her surprisingly difficult medium.

“It’s as much of a science as it is an art, because every kiln is different, and the temperature has to slow down at the right rate, at the right degree, otherwise it’ll shatter. And some glasses don’t fit with each other; they will cool and expand at different rates. It’s always a challenge — what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow, but I love it,” she insists.

Cheryl takes a mosaic approach to fused glass, melting carefully arranged compositions into landscapes inspired by the Sleeping Bear Dunes and Leelanau County. She also makes Giclèe prints of her glass landscapes, capturing the depth and feel of the glass without the heaviness.

“One of the things I liked about doing mosaic work to was that there was such a depth to it that a lot of people couldn’t get, so doing the [fused] glass work that I’m doing now, I work with so many layers so I can still get the depth,” Cheryl explains.

Her line of abstract fused glass jewelry is called Cher Wear, named with help from her background in computer programming.

“I went to college and was trained in computers, so I was involved in writing a lot of computer programs, and back a long time ago they used to have a lot of share ware out there, stuff that a developer would put out there for free for people to test and try out. In my computer brain — that was all I could think of — well, this is Cher Wear too.”

Thomas got inspired to work with encaustics after seeing an encaustic painting at River Street Gallery in Manistee.

“I just fell in love with it as a texture, and the colors stay really bright- they just last and last and I just like them,” he said.

Encaustic is an ancient form of painting that dates back to the Greek empire, when people used beeswax to patch seams in boats.

“Then they started mixing pigment in with it, and they started painting really colorful designs with it — it hardens fast, so you have to be quick with it, is the thing,” he explains.

Each one of Thomas’ encaustic paintings are made up of layer upon layer of locally produced beeswax. The base layers are plain undyed beeswax but Thomas adds color as the piece progresses, resulting in a depth and texture unique to encaustic.

“You can get great translucence out of this process. That’s one of the things I fell in love with, there gets to be so much depth in the painting itself, which I think is just cool.”

Thomas chooses to work abstractly because he enjoys having his forms capture a subjective mood and feeling rather than transmit a simple, clear image to the viewer, the way that traditional styles of painting do. By working abstractly, Thomas believes that his work will be enjoyed by almost everyone, since it’s easy to find an interesting image or feeling in an abstract work.

“I’ll look at it, and I’ll be in a mood, or the weather will be a certain way, and I’ll just work with it… and all of the sudden the painting is done — I do one more thing, and I’m not going to like it. Drawing a perfect leaf doesn’t do a mood for me, it doesn’t capture what I may be thinking at any given time,” he says.

Thomas recently entered one of his encaustics in a show sponsored by Gallery 50 in Traverse City, and was delighted to find out that he won an Honorable Mention.

“This was the first time he entered a contest, and there were 300 entries, 60 were accepted, and he got Honorable Mention,” Cheryl fondly tells.

“I was absolutely thrilled,” shares Thomas. “This is something I’ve never understood before — to have somebody develop a connection with what you did. It’s just a neat feeling, really neat.”

Cheryl and Thomas run a small gallery called Stu Stu Studio in their home at 10180 Aylsworth Street in Empire. The gallery is open from noon to five on Fridays and Saturdays during the summer, from Memorial Day thru Labor Day. Call (231) 326-5684 for an appointment if you are unable to stop by during business hours, or check out their websites: www.cheyenneglass.com, and www.artfolios.org/ThomasFettes. Cheryl’s work is also on display at Bellstone Gallery and Watermelon Sugar Gallery in Traverse City.

Posted by editor at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)

Sue Bullock: from helicopters to oils

By Corin Blust
Sun contributor

When Sue Bullock was five years old, she opened up an art book in the basement of the community church and decided she wanted to be a painter.

“It just clicked, I realized that people painted, they actually did that kind of thing, it amazed me and I realized that it was something I wanted to do,” Sue recounts.

Sue has been doing something artistic ever since. In grade school she found her mother’s sketches of horses and copied them. Sue drew helicopters while she was in the Army and then went on to work with stained glass for 20 years. Throughout all of this time, though, her true goal was to become an oil painter.

“My dream was always to oil paint, and every time I tried it, it was a mess. It was like ‘oh this is awful!’ so I quit,” Sue remembers.

One long cold winter about two years ago, Her boyfriend, Nello Valentine, urged her to paint again. So she got out her oil paints and painted a Jack in the Pulpit.

“It turned out. And it was like the first one. Something clicked, after all those years of attempting to do it and it just turning out yuck, it finally clicked for me two years ago, and it just kind of took off.”

Sue’s work is reminiscent of Hopper. She focuses primarily on the old abandoned farmhouses and barns at Port Oneida and landscapes around Leelanau County.

“My houses have a kind of Hopperesque feel, with the quiet house scenes … I love the landscapes in the area. I try to find mood, little nooks and crannies, and little obscure ways of looking at things.”

Even though Sue has only been seriously oil painting for two years, her work has a tranquil feel, and her paintings seem to glow as if lit from within. She taught herself her technique by copying the work of people she admires.

“I really like to try and make the glow, I love the glow … I think I kind of collected all this stuff from other people, tried to copy their paintings, and then it’s slowly merging into my own way of doing things. And I’m teaching myself in that way. It’s working for me.”

Sue has her work at three galleries around the area this year.

“I didn’t know if anybody would ever take my work, it was scary. I walked in and saw Vicki at the Secret Garden in Empire, and she liked my work, so I had it in there last year and it was amazing. I couldn’t keep up with it. Now this year I’m at three galleries, The Secret Garden, Glen Lake Artists’ gallery (in Glen Arbor), and I’ve got a few of my little trees over at Gallery 50 over in Traverse City.”

If you would like to contact Sue Bullock, call (231) 228-4663.

Posted by editor at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)

The wit and wisdom of Glen Lake’s Grand Dame

By Chase Edwards
Sun contributor

Glen Lake’s Grand Dame, Jeanette Miller, passed away last month. In her honor, we reprint this piece from a July, 2000 issue of the Glen Arbor Sun

“Oh, Honey, you woke me up from my nap. Don’t you know I take a nap from 4 to 5 everyday? Honey, it’s quite alright ...”

I should have remembered when I called to make an interview with her that Jeanette Miller slept from 4 until 5 every afternoon — wherever she may be at the time. As a kid I was accustomed to the sight of her napping soundly on my great grandmother’s couch. But eventually Jeanette stopped driving and we began seeing her less. And even though most locals could bet on the fact that Jeanette Miller would be asleep at 4 in the afternoon, it had somehow slipped my mind. Besides, it was a little past 6 in the evening.

I smiled when I hung up the phone. There’s so much to love about Jeannette. Glen Arbor wouldn’t be the same without her. In the 50 years since she spent her first summer on Glen Lake, this tall, white-haired woman known for her big laugh and bosomy hugs has made herself Glen Arbor’s most visible person. As Glen Lake School’s biggest fan (her son, Don Miller, is the boy’s basketball coach), she never misses a game when she can help it. Just last year, in fact, she made it to all 25 games the girl’s basketball team won in a row. She doesn’t like to cook, so chances are good that if you go out to eat you’ll meet her in one of Glen Arbor’s restaurants. But she does love to chat, so if you’re lucky, she’ll pull up a chair beside your table. She is, if you will, a Glen Arbor institution.

It’s now a hot July afternoon and I’m sitting on Jeanette Miller’s porch sipping lemonade. She sits across from me and reapplies her pink lipstick — it’s the stick she doesn’t like she explains. In front and to the side of her lie her four quaint summer cottages — one of which she has made into a permanent home for herself. They are the kind that have, all too often, been taken down for condominiums or grand summer homes. Just over Jeanette’s head and through the trees I catch a glimpse of Glen Lake. Alligator Hill lies beyond, and the view never ceases to please Jeanette. “What end do you suppose is the head and which is the tail?” she asks, turning around.

Born in 1914, Jeanette began summering up here with her husband and kids in 1951. At the time, her four children (Nancy, Jan, Don, and Pat) were ages 2, 3, 5, and 8. Ten years later an acre of land with eight small cabins on it next door went up for sale. The Millers wanted it badly but Jeanette’s husband wasn’t happy with the deal they were offered. Jeanette closed the deal on the cabins one day while her husband was at work. When he came home she said simply, “I can show you the papers, because I bought the whole thing!” And she’s never regretted it. “I love it! I just love it!” she told me with a grin, “I love the people and they are usually just so wonderful!” The Miller’s renovated the eight cabins into four bigger cottages, named the place Miller’s Cabins, and Jeannette was in the resort business. In the years since she has had only one grumpy customer to deal with. He threatened to call the police if she refused to give him back the $200 deposit used to reserve a cottage. She wrote him a check and said ‘God bless you’ as he stomped out the door. In hindsight she decided it would have been more appropriate to have said, “You can use my phone because I know them all [the police]!” There aren’t many people in the area that Jeanette doesn’t know.

With the taste of lemonade lingering in our mouths, Jeanette and I stroll around her property. She points to a flat of plants that badly need watering. “Nobody has planted those yet. Someday I’ll do it — when they are all dead!” she exclaims, and we continue on. We approach a very pregnant lady as we near the beach. She tells us that her baby is due in just three weeks, but because she didn’t want to lose her week at the cabin she came up anyway. Jeanette then introduces me to two boys that have been staying at her cottages since 1984. And we meet a little girl named Megan on her way to the beach.

What’s the secret behind the success of Miller’s Cabins? The beauty of Leelanau County and everyone’s love for Jeanette is what brings the same guests back to the cabins year after year. And while Glen Arbor is growing more crowded every summer, Miller’s Cabins never seem to change. Jeanette is always there to welcome them. Her guests spend the long, warm summer days on the beach. In the evenings they all gather around the grill. As the sun sets they flock to the bonfire pit to tell stories and roast marshmallows.

Although life has brought changes for Jeanette, she’s dealt with them well. After her husband died in a car accident in 1981 she moved to Glen Lake year round. In the years since, three of her children, Don, Nancy and Pat, have all moved to the area. Having them close enough to drop by for visits is one of her greatest joys.

As we wander slowly back to Jeanette’s house we run into Don.

He is on his way to a basketball camp and in a hurry. As he leaves, he asks his mother, “Should I drive on the right or left side of the road?”

“Just be sure not to pass people on the left!” she replies with a laugh. Then she adds: “Be careful and I love you.”

As he pulls out in a cloud of dust she shakes her head and says good-naturedly: “Don’t be in a hurry — don’t be like Don.” Then she turns to me and offers me a bit of her wisdom, “You don’t enjoy life if you’re always in a hurry,” she says.

Posted by editor at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

Cell phone-less locals are dying breed

By Joel Gaff
Sun contributor

I thought I was in a parallel universe when I heard her say it. “Let me give you my cell phone number,” she said. No, I wasn’t about to score the digits of some hot supermodel. Heck, I wasn’t even going to get a date. However, what I was going to get was something far more incredible. I was about to get Jen Semanco’s cell phone number. Yes, it’s official, folks, just about every true northern Michigan local now has a cell phone.

For the longest time, Jen Semanco, who was once called “Jenson Ankle” when someone misunderstood her name over the phone, resisted the temptation of getting a cell phone citing that it was unnecessary. But the Leelanau School teacher, Tratoria Funistrada waitress and occasional Leelanau Coffee Roaster barista, has now found a new sense of freedom and finally considers herself an independent woman. No longer does one have to pray to catch Jen while she is at home sitting next to the landline phone, or call down to Art’s Tavern and ask Tim if she happens to be there. Perhaps next time you call her she might be on I-75 somewhere between Cincinnati and Knoxville, maybe she’ll be just down the road at Funistrada serving up a fine glass of wine, or perhaps she might even be sitting on her living room couch. The fact is, is that it doesn’t matter where she is because now she’s connected.

On the other hand, former local Julia Wheeler was somewhat disappointed to learn of Semanco’s leap into the digital age. “I used to love telling my friends in Minnesota that I had a friend back home that didn’t have a cell phone.”

There have been additional reports of this so-called “cell phone fever” among area residents. Norm Wheeler has been seen with his wife Mimi’s Nokia stuck to his ear. “I’ve been using it a lot lately,” says Wheeler, who states that he doesn’t officially have a cell phone, since it belongs to Mimi. “Mimi is always by a landline, whether she’s at the chocolate shop or at home, so she doesn’t use the cell phone much.” If you’ve ever called Norm at home and had to leave a message, you know he’s a busy guy. It’s a good thing he has strong lungs from playing the flugelhorn because his greeting message would leave a short-breathed person gasping for air. “Hello, you’ve reached the number of Norm and Mimi Wheeler, the Beach Bards, Lanphier Observatory, the Turtlenecks, the Glen Arbor Sun newspaper, Jazz North, the Connemara Folk Music Concerts, sometimes Jacob and Julia Wheeler…” and the message goes on and on. Maybe Norm should think about borrowing Mimi’s phone long-term, since he’s rarely sitting next to the phone waiting for it to ring.

Next time you see Norm or Jen make sure to ask them for their digits. And let's hope that the cell tower is up and running when you call Jen so you don’t get confused and think you’ve dialed a wrong number and reached some Tennessee bluegrass singer named Jenson.

Posted by editor at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

These are not your mother’s piano lessons

By Carol Purcell
Sun contributor

What if I told you there is a method that teaches you to play great music of many styles — jazz, pop, ballads, classical and blues —from your first lesson? What if I told you this broad-based music education method would teach you accompaniment skills, composition, improvisation, the ability to read music and to read lead sheets? Would you think I’d gone around the bend?

Four months ago that’s what I would have thought too.

I love playing the piano and I love to sing. I learned to play piano the way most people do: by using a reading-based, traditional approach. The traditional approach requires that the student be able to read music before they can actually play anything, including reading notes by name, note values (as in rhythm), knowing what the different clef symbols mean and even some words and symbols in Italian. If that sounds like a lot to tackle at once it’s because it is. This traditional approach fails more often than it succeeds, and so many people quit so soon after they began. A social anthropologist from Berkley California even stated that piano lessons have the highest failure rate of any taught subject.

The only reason I didn’t become one of those statistics is because my mother forced me to stick with it for the first seven years. It wasn’t much fun for me and it was probably less fun for my mother, and that’s largely why I’ve avoided teaching piano for years, even when asked to … until I heard about Simply Music.

Simply Music takes a playing-based approach rather than a reading-based approach. It is multi-sensory and uses its own unique set of concepts and language. The reading process is delayed until the students have a large repertoire of fantastic sounding music, and the reading is introduced in an equally unique fashion. Neil Moore from Australia developed this method. The main premise of Simply Music is that everyone is innately and profoundly musical. Its main goal is to give music to every individual as a companion in life — to able to sit down and play a large variety of musical styles and genres at any place and any time. Simply Music was born when Moore was asked to teach a young blind boy and came up with a system that works very well for everyone.

I am so excited to have been licensed to teach this method and I can’t wait to share it with others. How many times have I heard someone say “Oh, I wish I could play the piano” or “You’re so lucky that you can just sit down and play.” Now I can help people make that wish come true in a way that is fun and effective. Simply Music works very well with children, teens, adults and senior citizens, and it has also been used in prisons and inner city schools as well as at home and in the group environment. One of the many things I’d like to do is teach groups of adults. Can you imagine “adults night out” playing the piano?

My currents students range from children, to teens, to adults and they are all succeeding.

For example, I have an adult student who sustained a closed head injury 20 years ago. She is a traditionally trained pianist, but because of her injury she lost the ability to process technical data and, consequently, much of her piano skills. With the Simply Music method she will find a way to reprogram her brain so that she can regain her piano skills, like others with closed head injuries have done. In only five lessons my student has learned several new songs and arrangements. There are many inspiring stories about all kinds of people who have discovered the joys of successfully playing the piano with the Simply Music method, and you can read about them at www.simplymusic.com.

The Simply Music website is a great resource for students and teachers alike. All teachers of this method (currently in four countries) are connected by the ECL email communication link, meaning that anyone can share a question, comment or experience in cyberspace. Because we all keep records in the same manner and follow the same program, if I teach a student in Glen Arbor who moves to another city in the winter, that person can easily continue with the program with a different teacher. Or if no teacher is available the student can use a home video course until they return to Glen Arbor.

Only someone who has been licensed by the Simply Music organization and has gone through the training program with the founder can teach the SM method. Training is ongoing as the teacher learns new levels and supplementary programs. If I have questions or problems Moore is always available by phone or email and his many years of experience as a teacher and as a coach of teachers is invaluable.

I am currently conducting introductory sessions for Simply Music. An introductory session is an information event for people interested in finding out more about Simply Music. They are free and last about one hour. I’d be happy to talk to you in person, on the phone or to see you at an introductory session if you are interested in this method for yourself, for someone else or if you are just curios. Call me at (231) 645-5370 or visit www.simplymusic.com for more information.

Posted by editor at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)