Undertaker enters the ring: Trump’s (very late) appearance in Traverse City

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By the time Donald Trump arrived three hours late in Traverse City for a campaign rally at a hangar near the airport on Friday, Oct. 25—11 days before the presidential election—the thousands of MAGA faithful gathered there were cold, tired and hungry. Toddlers dozed in their parents’ laps or curled like branches around their shoulders. Two women huddled together against a lamppost outside the hangar while they puffed on cigarettes. An exhausted couple lay on the cold concrete near the press area, eating corndogs. Hundreds left when they realized that Trump wouldn’t arrive any time close to his 7:30 scheduled appearance. The crowd gathered in Traverse City represented a cross section of northern Michigan. Some had driven across several counties to get here. There were medical workers, realtors, food service workers, and a few college students. They were very young, middle aged, and old, some very old. They showed kindness and compassion to their fellow attendees. When an exhausted and dehydrated person fell over, strangers raced to him and offered support, water bottles, and encouragement. Nevertheless, a sense of caution, even mistrust, undergirded some at the rally.

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Trump’s mass deportation threat worries Leelanau’s tight-knit Latino community

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They pick our cherries in the summer and our apples in the fall. They care for our vineyards and clean our rental houses. They raise children here, enroll them in public schools and celebrate quinceañeras in local parks. Many have lived in Leelanau County for decades. Out of 22,000 residents—according to the latest Census—as many as 1,000 of our neighbors identify as Hispanic or Latino. Many have an undocumented parent or family member living here in northern Michigan, now as rooted here as the pine trees, though they crossed illegally into the United States years ago. The local Latino community is acutely aware that the subject of immigration is tossed around like a political football during this presidential election season. They hear Republican candidate Donald Trump’s threats to carry out the “largest deportation in American history” and his maligning of non-white immigrant communities—and it frustrates and concerns them. Some worry about being racially profiled; some have grown more cautious about sharing their legal status with fellow community members; some worry about an environment of anxiety surrounding their kids, most of whom were born here and have U.S. citizenship.

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Leelanau Energy task force boasts big goals: Commissioner Lautner pushes back

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The Leelanau County Energy Futures Task Force, which was created by the County Commission last fall “to identify opportunities and facilitate implementation of energy efficiency and renewable energy in Leelanau County,” has big, green goals for this peninsula. The Commission earlier this year voted to apply for a $1.5 million grant to erect two solar arrays at the County Governmental Center campus. If awarded and approved by the Commission, the solar arrays could provide about 30 percent of the campus’ energy requirements, while saving the County $35,000 per year and more than $1.5 million in energy bills over the next 30 years. But the advisory group’s honeymoon ended soon after it was created. Commissioner Melinda Lautner, a Republican who has represented Solon and Kasson Townships for nearly three decades, has led the opposition to the solar array grant, even after voting to create the task force. “She inserted herself as the very last new member of the task force, then she missed all but one meeting to date,” said task force chairperson Joe DeFors. “She’s been an opponent of virtually every initiative we’ve put forward.” Lautner, who has been a Commissioner since 1995, faces her first-ever primary challenge from a fellow Republican on Tuesday, Aug. 6.

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Pier Pressure: remembering a drowning in Frankfort

Lane Frame was 12 years old when he saw the Great Lakes for the first time. According to his aunt, Joy Frame, he was very excited. It was September 21, 2020. Lane was in Michigan on a family vacation. The family drove up from Tennessee, and stopped in Frankfort—a small, Lake Michigan beach community.  Jewell Frame II—Lane’s uncle and Joy’s husband—thought the lake was the ocean. A vast difference between the smaller lakes they were used to. This story was adapted from Points North, a podcast by Interlochen Public Radio.

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Raptor Sanctuary goes extra mile to save injured birds of prey

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On Memorial Day, Kaitlyn Bohnet, 34, the executive director of North Sky Raptor Sanctuary, was notified by a concerned citizen that a near-fledgling red-shouldered hawk had been blown out of its nest in Ludington during a storm the day before. The scene of the unfortunate spill was the caller’s yard. Bohnet swung into action, retrieving the distressed bird. After conducting a wellness check on the crash-lander, she contacted the Pere Marquette Township Fire Department for assistance. Given an aerial lift of some 40 feet courtesy of the department’s ladder truck, Bohnet reunited the young hawk with its family in its maple tree nest, safe and sound. In 2023, North Sky, headquartered in Interlochen, rescued raptors in 29 northern Michigan counties, including Leelanau. Outlining their area of coverage, Bohnet explains, “It’s pretty much from Grand Rapids to the Mackinac Bridge, then everything east to west. So, if there’s a raptor in need, we’re here to help.”

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Leland Fireworks saved by concerned citizens

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Watching the Fourth of July parade with her husband, Greg, in front of their home on South Main Street in Leland carries extra special sentiment for Mary Kuntz. Not only is it her favorite part of the celebrations, but it reminds her of how she won the jackpot living in Leland. “It was always my dream to live here,” she shared, but Greg wasn’t initially that fond of Leland. His vacations here were always a steady stream of rain, with the exception of his first visit, when the couple stayed in a rental on Main Street and loved every bit of it. Besides the parade, they sometimes also watch Leland’s fireworks from the end of Pine Street near Main, a grand display that takes place at dusk on July 3 from Hancock Field. With fellow Leland resident Cheryl VanZee (Shorty) as a catalyst and Mary with quick resources, the two set about to save Leland’s fireworks this year.

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Twin Flames Universe holds covert Traverse City wedding

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The photos and cell phone videos suggested a typical northern Michigan summer wedding. But the ceremony held between Daniel Carboni and Cristina Fernandez on Sunday, June 16, at the Lodge at Hickory Hills—Traverse City’s municipal-owned ski hill—was anything but typical. The nuptials were the culmination of a four-day “Spiritual Life Summit” held by the Twin Flames Universe, a new age relationship cult run by Suttons Bay residents Jeff and Shaleia Ayan. They are accused of charging their cult members thousands of dollars while pressing them into toxic relationships and manipulating their emotional and mental health struggles. To avoid detection, the summit’s organizers used alias names when they booked Traverse City venues. Even so, an informal group of concerned individuals who call themselves Citizens for the Prevention of Predatory Commerce have worked behind the scenes, contacting many venues in the Traverse City region and Leelanau County and encouraging them to exercise due diligence if contacted by Twin Flames Universe. In February, the National Writers Series hosted author Janja Lalich—an authority on cults—and Twin Flames survivor Keely Griffin to the Traverse City Opera House for an event packed with drama, emotion and education about the nature of cults, then and now.

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Navigating the corn maze: Jacob’s Farm champions agritourism

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“Houses are great, but I think this is real pretty,” Jacob’s Farm owner Michael Witkop said as he stood outside the hilltop Orchard View wedding barn and gazed north across their 10-acre corn maze to the red centennial barn, where workers scurried like busy ants to open the restaurant, bar, and outdoor music venue by early June. Beyond the M-72 corridor, which connects his destination to bustling Traverse City, the hills of Leelanau County hovered in the distance like low-hanging clouds. We’re featuring Jacob’s Farm as part of our series on innovative solutions to the farming crisis. On May 7, Witkop addressed 65 attendees of Michigan State University (MSU) Extension’s first-ever Agritourism Summit, which included a tour of local agritourism businesses that have succeeded in bringing customers directly to their farms—thereby forestalling the fate that has forced tens of thousands of small farms across the United States to close in recent decades.

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More than just a filet of fish

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It’s early April, and Jim VerSnyder is sitting at a big stainless-steel table that’s covered in fish blood at Carlson’s Fishery in one of the historic Fishtown shanties in Leland. He’s got a long, sharp knife in one hand, and with the other, he reaches into a bin filled with ice, pulls out a fish, and plops it on a cutting board, reports Dan Wanschura in this story adapted from a podcast for Interlochen Public Radio. Right now, the value of an average Great Lakes whitefish is around $15. But there’s a project that’s trying to double—even triple that amount in the next several years. And it does that by finding ways to use parts of the fish that are often thrown away. This project is based on a success story in Iceland.

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In Solon Cemetery lies D-Day story: Lilly Sergueiew’s heroics chronicled in new book

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A double agent who worked for the Allies during World War II under the codename “Treasure” and played a significant role in deceiving the Germans about the location of the D-Day invasion rests in Solon Cemetery, near Cedar in Leelanau County. The D-Day landings in Normandy, France, 80 years ago today played a pivotal role in the war and the liberation of western Europe from Nazi Germany. The spy was Russian-born Nathalie “Lily” Sergueiew, who was born in 1912 in St. Petersburg and fled with her family to France following the Russian Revolution of 1917. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Glen Arbor Sun interviewed British writer Peter Winnington, author of the new book “Codename TREASURE,” which chronicles Sergueiew’s heroics.

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