The Glen Arbor Players Reader’s Theater troupe has scheduled auditions for the award-winning play “Bus Stop” by William Inge. The auditions will be held on Monday, May 6, at the Glen Lake Community Reformed Church and Tuesday, May 7, at the Old Town Playhouse in Traverse City, both at 7 pm. The play will be performed at the Glen Lake Community Reformed Church from June 6-8.
The Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council presented its 35th annual environmentalist of the year awards in a ceremony on April 19 at Milliken Auditorium on the campus of Northwestern Michigan College. Winners from Leelanau County included: John Dindia of Lakeview Hill Farm for agriculture/farming; Sam Getsinger of Leelanau Indivisible for grassroots organizing; Tina Greene Bevington of Bay Books in the business category, and writer Kathleen Stocking for the Greg Reisig Prize for Environmental Journalism.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is inviting the public to comment on a project to improve safe and reliable boat access to the Manitou Islands. The approximately $32 million project, funded by the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) Legacy Restoration Fund, will address the impact of natural processes, such as littoral drift (shifting sands) and high-water levels, on the islands’ docks. The Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Manitou Islands dock project will be open for a 30-day public comment period until May 15.
The black bear that gained national press last week after it briefly broke into Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate in Empire and made off with a 50-pound bag of sugar apparently has a taste for chickens, too. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) caught the bear in a live trap today on Joshua Evan Fast’s property on Stormer Road, about 2.5 miles southeast of downtown Empire. Fast told the Sun that the bear had eaten 16 of his chickens over the past two weeks after breaking the door to their chicken coop.
A black bear has visited Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate in Empire on five consecutive evenings this week, rummaged through a dumpster and spreading garbage around the village, and pulling open the back door and devouring a 50-pound bag of sugar. On Tuesday night, April 16, around 10:30 pm, the bear entered the beloved chocolate shop for no more than 20 seconds, stole the sugar and returned to the sidewalk to eat it. It touched nothing else in the shop, not even the small, chocolate bears on display by the checkout counter.
North Manitou Light Keepers (NMLK) have announced the launch of the final phase of the Campaign for the Crib. This capital campaign supports restoration of the North Manitou Shoal Light. The goal of this phase is to raise the $300,000 needed to complete major restoration of the historic offshore lighthouse in the Manitou Passage. With this funding, NMLK will install new electrical and plumbing systems, as well as new interior fixtures and finishes. This work will complete the major restoration of the Crib and could be done by the end of 2025. Overnight stays and other experiences, in addition to currently offered day tours, can then be possible for members and the public.
“Those fleeting but utterly magical moments where the sun is completely obscured are truly transcendent. I actually teared up as I removed my safety glasses and looked directly at the sun, for the first time in my life, safely. The moon holding court, center stage, a protector for those mere minutes,” wrote Cedar resident Ellen Fred, who traveled to the path of totality yesterday in Ohio. “The last fingernail of sunlight still bright, (as y’all saw in Leelanau), too bright for the naked eye, but after the diamond ring when it becomes a total eclipse, its like a switch was flicked, its dark, you can see several planets either side of the perfect black circle of the moon, and the sun’s corona is a bright white braided swirl of dancing light that gobsmacks the birds, dogs, and people staring at it repeating ‘Wow!! Amazing!’ wrote Norm Wheeler, who traveled to view it from Indianapolis.
Leelanau County businesses have found an innovative solution to the region’s vexing affordable housing and workforce recruitment crisis. County government, chambers of commerce, and local businesses will team up to build a vast tent encampment at the vacant and abandoned Sugar Loaf property, which was once a cherished ski resort and Leelanau’s biggest year-round employer before gangsters, con-men and real estate tycoons closed it for good nearly 25 years ago. “We had the same housing and workforce crisis in the metropolis of Traverse City,” said Rikardo Liko, former Traverse City chancellor and Leelanau’s current interim county administrator. “But the tent encampment in the pines in the Grand Traverse Commons solved all that. We found that hardworking people who can’t afford to pay $3,000 per month for rent in northern Michigan, and can’t afford a $1 million home on the water, could instead live in tents in the woods and keep our tourism and service economics afloat.”
The first internationally recognized Montessori Diploma Course in Michigan will begin this June, with Leelanau Montessori Public School Academy in Lake Leelanau co-hosting the renowned program alongside The Children’s House in Traverse City. Offered in conjunction with Washington Montessori Institute, the one-year accreditation course will train future Montessori teachers to help guide and support the development of children 3–6 years old. A Montessori diploma in early childhood is equivalent to a master’s degree and qualifies graduates to work as “Level Two” professionals, or Lead Instructors, in a childcare setting. Leelanau joins Atlanta and Charlotte as the only national locations to host the WMI program, and it could help address the shortage of prepared early childhood educators and professionals in our area.
Scott Bouma, a resident of Cedar, is the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s (GAAC) new executive director, as announced last week in a media release. Bouma joined the GAAC staff in 2013 as an office manager and rose to the position of operations manager. He replaces Sarah Kime, who served as GAAC’s executive director from 2019 until this month. Kime leaves the GAAC to join the staff of North Carolina Outward Bound School as director of advancement.