Courtesy of Interlochen Public Radio: Last week, a Glen Arbor resident won two medals in a slalom ski race, not so uncommon Up North. But this racer is 100 years old. Lou Batori has been skiing for 90 years. “You have to ski to stay young, or you have to be young to ski. Your choice,” Batori said last week, skiing at Nub’s Nob in Harbor Springs.
Michigan Land Use Institute: A proposal by the nation’s largest energy company to erect more than 100 utility-scale wind turbines in Benzie and Manistee Counties holds the promise for an economic boost to the rural region, experts say, and will further the state’s efforts to become a leader in the nation’s emerging clean energy sector.
On Jan. 20, a team of American runners with northern Michigan roots arrived in a coffee-growing village near Yirgachefe after running 250 miles over 12 days through Ethiopia’s ancient Rift Valley. Glen Arbor Sun editor Jacob Wheeler joined the Run Across Ethiopia and submitted reports, photos and videos from the trail.
Residents in the village of Honor have banded together to form the Honor Area Restoration Project (HARP) to restore their home to the magical place they once knew. Formed only seven months ago when three local businesswomen decided to hold a meeting to stop the decline of what they saw as a dying town, HARP has big plans for the small village’s future. HARP knows that in order to get the entire area on board, they have to show villagers they can get things done. And that first step towards a brighter future is putting in a sidewalk that will connect the downtown to the shopping plaza, making the short trip safe to walk or cycle.
Circle of Blue: By siding with the Anglers of the Au Sable in a long-running lawsuit over a state permit that threatened the celebrated trout stream, the Michigan Supreme Court has strengthened protection of all state waters in the process, according to lead attorney Jim Olson.
Both Empire’s and Glen Arbor’s annual Winterfests are coming up on Saturday, February 19. Take the Polar Plunge in Empire’s South Bar Lake, and come to Glen Arbor’s Perch Fishing contest from 7 a.m.-1 p.m. and the Chili Cookoff on the deck at Boone Docks from noon until 3 p.m.
Sarah Wigton Dominguez’s tropical dream looks a bit different, however. The 26-year-old, who recently earned double master’s degrees in social work and public health at the University of Michigan, pictures a lush island –— say, Hispaniola, home to the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic — that includes clean water, blooming mothers with healthy babies, and thriving communities empowered to make educated choices about their daily lives.
If 2011 continues to be as full of excitement, exhilaration, and adulation as its first weekend, Emma Cook is headed for quite a year. On the evening of Sunday, Jan. 2, Emma packed The Loading Dock restaurant/bar in Traverse City with almost 200 of her closest friends for the release party of her new CD, “Days of Wonder”. The fruit of a semester off from the University of Vermont, and an autumn of intense work with Patrick Niemisto at the Holy Wah Studio near Maple City, Days of Wonder is a harvest of Emma’s crystalline voice and emerging songwriting skills.
Maple City area resident Jan Waling (pronounced “Yon Whaling”) is used to being incognito. His job has been to make others shine at what they do. For more than 30 years, Waling has sweetened the sound of performers’ music and voices at concert venues near and far, helping with the setup, running the mixing board and, eventually, recording performances — live and in the studio.
City chickens may be a new thing now, but in the city of my childhood, Toledo, Ohio, there was nothing unusual about raising backyard hens, roosters or even rabbits for that matter. Times then, as now, were lean and tight, and people were just beginning to rise up out of the dire straits of near poverty; so raising chickens for their eggs or a Sunday dinner, or rabbits for Saturday night stew, helped nourish many families.