Leelanau’s influencers of 2024

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From staff reports

With 2024 in the rearview mirror and 2025 upon us, we’re recognizing 25 “influencers” we covered in the Glen Arbor Sun this past year who are making a meaningful impact on Leelanau County communities, commerce, and culture. Read below about those 25 local influencers, who include everyone from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, to Leelanau Investing for Teens, to Empire’s polar dippers, to popular new destinations River Club Glen Arbor, the Sleeping Bear Inn, and the Lively’s NeighborFood Market.

1) The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, together with the nonprofit New Community Vision, which re-acquired tribal land historically known as “Mashkiigaki”—former Timber Shores property once slated for a giant RV park on a more than 200-acre tract along West Grand Traverse Bay.

2) The Grand Traverse Band flexed its muscle, with help from Little Traverse Lake homeowners, and convinced Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to halt a controversial Heritage Trail extension along Little Traverse Lake.

3) Dozens of animal lovers and citizens, who rallied in the days before Thanksgiving near the Leelanau-Benzie County Line to locate a missing pony Lorelei who was found safe.

4) Democrats vying for the County Board of Commissioners lost the 6-1 super majority they thought they had, and found themselves in the minority, once a vote undercount was corrected by County Clerk Michelle Crocker three days after the election. Rather than pout, Democrats rallied behind Crocker, showed their faith in her, and accepted the results, for the good of democracy.

5) When Fountain Point Resort on Lake Leelanau was unable to host The Accidentals’ annual “FAMGrove” celebration, French Valley Vineyard picked up the slack. The one-day music festival attended by the dynamic young band’s faithful fans was held in in French Valley’s barn and vineyard awash in autumn splendor.

6) The Leelanau County Road Commission and Grand Traverse Engineering & Construction replaced the aging “shoot the tube” culverts with a new timber bridge over the Crystal River. The multimillion-dollar bridge and river restoration effort is the result of a collaboration between the Road Commission, the Conservation Resource Alliance, the Grand Traverse Band, and the National Lakeshore.

7) The Empire community packed the town hall in September to honor their neighbor, and Michigan Author Award winner Anne-Marie Oomen.

8) Leelanau Investing for Teens (LIFT), Leland High School, Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, and many philanthropic Leelanau locals are part of the community that has planted seeds and grown cultural exchanges in Guatemala in recent decades.

9) Northwoods Hardware owners Jeff and Georgia Gietzen, stalwarts in the Glen Arbor community, will soon take a step back and exhale after hiring Chad Borodychuk as the popular hardware store’s new general manager.

10) The Old Art Building in Leland kicked off its capital campaign with a recent riverfront property purchase.

11) The new excitement in Glen Arbor this summer was at the River Club minigolf putting course. In fact, based on a fun July outing, five out of five kids recommended golf at the River Club.

12) Longtime Leelanau Enterprise reporter Eric Carlson’s speech at the Glen Lake Woman’s Club annual Fourth of July Flag Raising ceremony offered an eloquent defense of journalism, civil liberties, and a more perfect union.

13) The Sleeping Bear Inn, the crowned jewel of Glen Haven, reopened to guests this past summer, more than 50 years after it closed when the National Lakeshore was created in 1972. The Inn, which was built in 1866 and served guests through the Michigan lumber boom, the roaring ’20s, and the era of dune buggies, is the oldest hotel in the National Park Service.

14) High school graduations typically celebrate the students. But a special ceremony held by Northwest Education Services at Creekside School in the Grand Traverse Commons on June 21 honored not just local migrant farmworker graduates but also their hardworking families.

15) Concerned citizens in Leland pooled their resources together to save the town’s popular Fourth of July fireworks display.

16) Media coverage in late 2023 of the Twin Flames Universe, a coercive cult run by a Suttons Bay couple, inspired an informal group of concerned individuals who call themselves “Citizens for the Prevention of Predatory Commerce” to educate local businesses about Twin Flames and discourage them from doing business with the cult.

17) Considered a local champion of agritourism, Jacob’s Corn Maze on M-72 was a featured stop on Michigan State University Extension’s first-ever Agritourism Summit. Businesses like Jacob’s Farm 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.

18) D-Day veteran, and longtime Leelanau resident Dick Grout received the French Legion of Honor in a Jan. 30 ceremony at Kirkbride Hall in the Grand Traverse Commons. Grout, one of the first to land on Omaha beach on June 6, 1944, passed away on Dec. 19 at age 104.

19) The Glen Arbor artist community held a reception at Lake Street Studios on June 1 to benefit Beth Bricker, co-owner of Forest Gallery and a pillar of the local artist community who is battling cancer. Beth’s parents, the late Ananda and Ben Bricker, were founding members of the Glen Arbor Art Association 40 years ago.

20) The Lively family’s NeighborFood Market opened to the public in July, creating a popular new destination along the M-72 corridor, east of Empire.

21) In Omena, Hillary and Matt Voigt opened V Gallery, filling the void left by Tamarack Gallery, which closed the previous year.

22) Victorious in its lawsuit against Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the National Park Service, Riverside Canoes in Honor celebrated 60 years of operation.

23) Featured in our Creative Collaborators of Leelanau, series, Fernhaus Studio’s Kelsey Duda has made an enormous impact with her restoration of The Mill in Glen Arbor and Leland’s Riverside Inn.

24) The multi-generational group of Empire dippers who find community and resilience in cold Lake Michigan, no matter the season.

25) Two groups concerned about the region’s affordable housing crisis, Peninsula Housing and Leelanau Christian Neighbors, are both acquiring homes to help families in need.

The Glen Arbor Sun, which celebrates 30 years in 2025, is a free community publication supported by local advertisers and subscribers. Thanks for your readership and support.