Katie Dunn is Local-ISH!
By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor
If you live in Leelanau County but weren’t born here, when do you stop being a “Fudgie”? On p. 30 of Scott Craig’s new book Laughing in Leelanau (or I Swear It’s True), we learn that, “In different parts of the United States, locals have coined nicknames for tourists. In Colorado they are called ‘Flatlanders,’ in New England ‘Cone Lickers,’ in Florida ‘Q Tips’ because of their white hair and white tennis shoes, in Wisconsin ‘Shackers’ because they rent cabins, and in Maine ‘Citiots’ for obvious reasons.” (In West Cork, Ireland, I heard them call the tourists ‘Blow Ins.’) “In Northern Michigan they are known as ‘Fudgies.’ The name seems to have originated on Mackinac Island where there are numerous fudge shops.”
So, if you are Katie Dunn, and you have been coming to Glen Arbor every summer since 1976, and you have worked all over town, and you know everybody, are you still a ‘Fudgie,’ or ‘Permafudge,” or now a ‘Local?’ Katie declares, “I feel like I’m ‘Local-ish.’ When I bought a car to keep up my 1927 log cabin I own on Big Glen Lake, I got a Michigan license plate. Doesn’t that give credence to me being a local?” she asks with a smile.
If anyone qualifies for that moniker, it is Katie Dunn. She started staying up here in the summer of 1976 at 5-years-old, when her parents Kathleen and Ed (‘Big Dog’) Dunn rented a cabin at Glen Craft (Krolls). “When I was 11-years-old, Big Dog and some other Chicago guys found 12 acres on Big Glen containing the Old Orchard Inn/Tonawanda Resort. They bought it and split it three ways and razed the buildings to build cottages.”
Spending the summer here became routine, and Katie worked her way through the local shops as so many young people do in Glen Arbor. “My Dad made me begin working at 14—no waterskiing or days off! In the ‘80s I worked at The Soda Shop (now the Western Avenue Grill), at City Limits, at the old Glen Arbor Bakery (now the home of Leelanau Vacation Rentals). I worked as a hostess at the old Le Bear Restaurant for the Lipton’s. (The Le Bear timeshare condos that replaced the old restaurant on the beach now house the restaurant Blu).
Meanwhile, growing up back in the Windy City, Katie graduated from New Trier Township High School in Winnetka in 1988. She went to Providence College in Rhode Island, graduating in 1992, and then she took a year off to study for the LSAT. That led Katie to the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law (from which her great-grandfather graduated in 1897 and her father in 1967), where she received her law degree in 1996. During law school she still managed to summer up north, clerking for Leelanau County Judge Joe Deegan by day and waitressing at Joe’s Friendly Tavern by night.
“Then I went to Philadelphia to work as a Public Defender dealing with juvenile delinquency matters, criminal misdemeanor charges, and arguing before the Pennsylvania Court of Appeals. I also represented indigent people who had been involuntarily committed to the state hospital. But I got homesick for Chicago.” In the fall of 1997, she returned as a staff attorney in the Cook County Criminal Court Bldg. “doing research for 8-10 judges.”
By then married to former husband Rick Campbell, who she met at NU Law, Katie stopped working when she was pregnant with her son Rich (who now works for a software company in San Francisco.) In seven years, they had five children. After Rich came Mary Kate (University of Michigan class of 2022, congratulations!), Patrick (a junior at Marquette U), then Jack and Connor, both still in highschool at Loyola Academy.
While raising her family in Chicago, Katie became an activist for the Democratic Party. She is friends with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, helped with her last campaign, and is now busy helping her get reelected in 2023. Next week Katie is throwing a party in Lightfoot’s honor in Chicago. She is also working on four other congressional campaigns in the Chicago area.
After going through a divorce in 2020, Katie has divided her time between Chicago and Glen Arbor almost 50-50, but she is getting ready to bring her enormous energy to Leelanau permanently. She already volunteers three days a week at Leelanau Christian Neighbors (LCN) in Lake Leelanau, at their food bank on Mondays from 2-6, and on Thursdays and Fridays at their Samaritan’s Closet, where all sales benefit LCN. She is also helping out at Coastal (in the Glen Arbor Recreational District) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. “I have always believed that it is important to give back, to lend a helping hand whenever you can,” Katie says.
You’ll see Katie Dunn all over town: jogging along M-22 between Glen Arbor and the Narrows still wearing her pearls, eating with her whole clan at Art’s or Boonedocks, getting a gourmet sandwich at Inn & Trail (where she will soon pull a shift now and then), being the official wine-pourer at Lake Street Studios’ weekly Friday night openings from 6-8, or gathered with her posse of girlfriends for cocktail hour at the M-22 Wine patio or in the backyard at Glen Arbor Wines.
“All my campaign work, volunteering at LCN, my awesome kids and parents, lifelong friends, my life up here in the woods have all sustained me through this new life chapter. So has my special friend John Morrow from Leland, whose life of summering up here in Leelanau County has been much like my own. This place is my heaven.”
