-- To the four finalists for 2009 National Cherry Festival Queen -- Franki Price, of Elk Rapids; Angela Sayler and Stephanie Paulosky, of Williamsburg; and Samantha Dunn, of Gaylord. The winner will be crowned in festival ceremonies on July 10.
-- To 36-year-old Sally Soffredine, who with the support of her adoptive parents was able to find her birth mom, Jackie Drenth-Nachazel. They had a happy reunion, and Sally was able to introduce her birth mom to her four children.
-- To Northwestern Michigan College volunteers and picnickers for making the 54th annual college barbecue a success. The event, sunny blue skies and jacket weather drew more than 8,000 people to the always popular fundraiser. Volunteers also delivered hundreds of meals to homebound seniors.
-- To the Northwestern Michigan Draft Horse and Mule Association for sponsoring Sunday's 20th annual "Plow Day" at the Cal Spangler farm in Monroe Center. It featured a mix of plowing skills, wagon rides and an obstacle course. Drivers and teams of Percherons, Belgians and Shire workhorses plowed straight furrows and showed off other crucial farming skills of yesteryear.
-- To Jeanne Ritter, Kathleen Leach and Julie Schleif for creating and organizing a formal music training program for TEACH, a group that serves the area home-school community. The training program, instituted this year, includes beginning and intermediate bands as well as a choir. About 200 people attended the first spring concert earlier this month at Christ the King Catholic Church in Acme. The music program was Ritter's brainchild. Leach directs the choirs and Schleif is band director.
-- To local bicyclists who participated in last week's annual "Ride of Silence," part of a nationwide effort intended to honor cyclists killed or injured on public roads. The local ride was organized by the Cherry Capital Cycling Club. Carl Ray, 62, a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier, died last summer after a car hit him from behind along Rapid River Road in Kalkaska County's Clearwater Township. The motorist is still awaiting trial on charges of negligent homicide and operating under the influence causing death.
-- To the Fife Lake Historical Society for saving an 1878 one-room schoolhouse from oblivion and to volunteer teachers Nancy Wilson and Sue Dutton, who gave history "life" two days this month. The retired teachers taught Fife Lake elementary fourth-grade students "the old way" in the restored schoolhouse. Students recited from McGuffey readers, wrote in copy books, memorized and recited verses. The classes were the beginning of the society's "day in the life" program.
-- To Sarah Bassett, a 2005 Elk Rapids High School graduate, who received a Fulbright scholarship to study urban planning, sustainable community development and effects on nomadic cultures for 10 months in Mongolia.
-- To the area Housing Task Force and Northwest Michigan Council of Governments for launching NWMHousingsearch.org. The Internet database is designed to help low- to middle-income residents find affordable housing in the five-county Grand Traverse region.
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