Our story series celebrating songs inspired by Leelanau County and the Sleeping Bear Dunes continues with Illinois resident and summer visitor Jeff Maharry’s homage to Good Harbor Bay. “For years my family has come to Leelanau County in early August and have explored just about every point where you can access Lake Michigan,” said Maharry, a singer songwriter and musician from Homewood, Illinois, near Chicago. He performs solo as well as with his band Falling Stars. “There are amazing spots across the whole peninsula, but there’s something just perfect about Good Harbor Bay so we find ourselves going back there again and again. I wrote this song in the summer of 2010 after we spent a simply wonderful day on the beach, and I can hear the waves and feel the sun on my face every time I sing it.”
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This year we’re launching a new story series that celebrates the songs inspired by Leelanau County and the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Whether they were written last month or 100 years ago, their lyrics and melodies pay homage to this peninsula and the shoreline we love. We launch the series with the late Louan Lechler’s folk song, “I’m proud to say I live in Leelanau County, where people live in houses they built with their hands”—an homage to the homesteaders, the hippies, the craftsmen, the jacks of all trades who choose these woods to call home.
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After a 2020 pandemic hiatus, the Beach Bards are back! The Friday night bonfires featuring poetry, storytelling and music on the beach at The Leelanau School will take place four times this summer: June 25, July 9, July 23, and August 6.
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Due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Leelanau School has canceled all Beach Bards Bonfire storytelling and music events and all public stargazing and constellation lessons at the Lanphier Observatory for summer 2020.
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Who knew?! No one imagined that an idea hatched on bar stools at Art’s Tavern (the source of many brilliant ideas) by Bob Sutherland and me over 30 years ago would live so long.
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Since the Lanphier Observatory was built 40 years ago during the bicentennial year of 1976, visitors to the Glen Lake area and the Leelanau School have oohed and aahed at the wonders of the universe they can see through a 14-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegranian telescope.
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Fuzz Foster, along with original Beach Bards Bob Sutherland, Anne-Marie Oomen, Les Dalgliesh and me, and long-time Bards Bronwyn Jones and Joe VanderMeulen, kicked off the 23rd season of by-heart poetry, storytelling, and music on The Leelanau School beach on Friday, June 24.
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The Beach Bards Bonfire — the storytelling and poetry festival on Friday nights at The Leelanau School beach north of Glen Arbor — begins its 23rd season tonight. Children’s hour starts at 8 p.m., and the adult portion begins at 9 p.m. Bards Norm Wheeler, Anne-Marie Oomen, Bronwyn Jones and Joe VanderMeulen typically lead the performance (stories and poems are recited by-heart, and not read, according to the oral tradition). And musicians usually make an appearance around the fire.
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