Four miles of new mountain bike trails opened in late July at Palmer Woods Forest Reserve. And four more miles of trails are expected to open in mid to late October, thereby more than doubling the length of the current trail system, which will offer 14 miles of mountain bike trails in total.
Tonight at 7 p.m. the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners will vote on whether to defund a popular early childhood development services program provided by the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department, which voters passed in a millage levy two years ago. Last week Commissioner Will Bunek voted to approve the senior services millage, even as he moved to defund the early childhood millage. Patricia Soutas-Little, a Democrat on the Board of Commissioners and a primary advocate for the childhood development services program, said that last week’s move by Bunek and other Republicans “awoke a sleeping giant” in Leelanau County.
It was the perfect day for the return of the M22 Challenge. Sunny weather, 70 degrees, and clear skies made Saturday, September 18, an especially beautiful day in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Dave Smith, 37, from Gaylord, won first place with a course record time of 1:11:17, winning the M22 Challenge for the first time.
On Tuesday, September 21 at 7 pm, Leland Township Library will host the Tilt Think Improv Players for Litflix: a mashup of literature and improv comedy. In this interactive performance, the players create stories and scenes made-up on the spot based on inspiration from the audience.
A massive hay catcher left in a Leelanau County centennial barn. The barn’s owner passed away, and his daughter, a client of Refuge Salon in Suttons Bay, sold it to woodworking craftsman Mitch Meoak. Mitch and his wife Charynn own Refuge Salvage Works and Refuge Salon, which coexist in the former Business Helper building on Broadway St. Mitch Meoak is a craftsman, a salvage master, and preservationist. Every item on display at Refuge Salvage Works has a unique story.
It wasn’t until an Aug. 29 memorial service for their son, Tommy, that Holly and Tom Reay learned how much the 17-year-old had helped other northern Michigan teenagers who also suffered from anxiety and depression. The loss of Tommy on July 10 sent shockwaves through the Glen Lake community and pried open the door for some families to talk about mental health issues. “There were children who knew Tommy and immediately went to their parents and asked for help,” said Tom Reay. Out of a desire to educate the community about mental illness and depression, and shine a light on a painful subject too often swept into the shadows, the Reays—who own the Burdickville restaurant Trattoria Funistrada—used social media to destigmatize and foster conversations about suicide soon after Tommy took his own life.
Empire writer Anne-Marie Oomen read the following poem this morning—September 11, 2021—at the annual September 11 ceremony of remembrance at the Glen Lake Fire Department. Her poem, “Morning at the Monument” (a roughshod sonnet) was inspired by this 20th anniversary and a study of the monument, a shard of one of the Twin Towers that is memorialized in Glen Arbor.
Bronwyn Jones’ reflection on September 11, 2001, and her New York City childhood was republished from our September 2001 edition of the Glen Arbor Sun, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Afghanistan war veteran Nick Beadleston, 33, who lives in Traverse City today, recalls a suicide bombing and the carnage he witnessed during his tour in Kabul, and reflects on why we in the United States must help Afghan war refugees today.
Since the 1990s, the Glen Arbor Arts Center (GAAC) has welcomed visiting artists who want to immerse themselves in their work. The GAAC’s Suzanne Wilson Artist-in-Residence program offers up to seven, creative practitioners a two-week respite from their daily lives in order to focus on a new idea that needs space and time to develop, to an on-going project that might be nearing conclusion.