Cheers
-- To the Traverse Area Association of Realtors, Great Lakes Scuba and Scuba North dive shops and the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay -- and their volunteers -- for conducting their 15th annual cleanup of water and beachfront in and around Grand Traverse Bay. Prior to this year, the crews concentrated on clearing trash along the Boardman River, but this year moved onto the beaches and into the waters of the bay.
-- To residents throughout northern Michigan who are fighting valiantly to care for themselves and their families in the face of the crushing effects of the spiraling economic downturn.
-- To Al Bonney, who recently became the 87th president of the Traverse City Rotary Club. Bonney, a native of Boston, is president of the Spinnaker Group, a hospitality consulting business. He also is a board member of Rotary Charities, the philanthropic arm of the 285-member Rotary Club. He has lived in Traverse City for 13 years.
-- To John Wyman, owner of Victoria Creek Vineyards in Leelanau County, for the use of self-generated power -- from solar, geothermal and wind sources. Wyman operates the only "off-the-grid" vineyard in Michigan.
-- To the organizers of Northwestern Michigan College's "College for Kids," an eight-week program that offers more than 150 week-long courses to hundreds of area children during the summer. Apparently, the idea struck a chord with the kids. "The is way funner than school," proclaimed an 8-year-old third-grader. Now that's a testimonial.
-- To proponents of moving the Kmart headquarters "Tyme Myth" sculpture from Troy to northern Michigan for their compromise solution that apparently will place the large structure at Interlochen Center for the Arts rather than on the Open Space area along Grand Traverse Bay in Traverse City. A proposal to relocate the sculpture on the bay was dropped after it ran into opposition from local residents. Officials at Interlochen are still negotiating with "Tyme Myth's" owners to obtain the piece.
Jeers
-- To two-time murderer Jerry Jay Anderson for telling the family of his victim that he cared for her better before he stabbed her to death than her family treated her. Anderson stabbed his former wife to death last January and was sentenced to 50 to 75 years in prison by Circuit Judge Philip Rodgers. During a court proceeding, Anderson, 47, said he comforted the woman before he stabbed her.
-- To whoever illegally dumped thousands of gallons of brine water, an oil drilling byproduct that mostly is saltwater, along a roadway in Kalkaska County.
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