Introducing Kurt Schultz, Glen Arbor Township new safety officer. Schultz has long been interested in transportation matters. Until his retirement in 2012, he wrote technical manuals for M1 Abrams battle tanks and Stryker Vehicles, armored fighting vehicles built for the U.S. Army by General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights where he was employed for 16 years.
Endurance Evolution’s third annual Glen Arbor Solstice Half Marathon & 5k takes place on Saturday, June 21 at 7 a.m. The event is a scenic half marathon and a 5k run/walk race in Glen Arbor. The half marathon will take runners around Big Glen Lake in a clockwise loop, starting and finishing in downtown Glen Arbor.
The Glen Arbor Art Association announced the cast for its June 17-19 Readers’ Theater production of the movie/radio play Casablanca. All the performers and staging assistants are locals from Leelanau County.
Local restaurateurs and Northern Michigan breweries will show off their best as Glen Arbor kicks off the summer season with the annual BBQ & Brew summer celebration on Saturday, June 21, from 2 until 8 p.m. BBQ & Brew is a fundraiser for the Glen Lake Chamber of Commerce. This year’s celebration will be held under the tent at the northwest corner of Western Avenue and Lake Street, and feature an adjacent dining tent to sit, relax and enjoy great music.
Miller Hill resident Michael Collier writes that on Wednesday, June 11, he spotted and photographed a black bear at his bird feeder. “This shy fellow happened to find our bird feeder, eventually destroying it obtaining the seeds,” writes Collier. “He/she snapped the pole off near the ground while leaning against it, then ran off like a bullet down the hill when I opened the outside door and stomped on the deck.”
After a particularly long and dreary, not to mention snowy, winter, Leelanau’s warmer weather—as well as the spring and summer bounty that comes with rising temperatures—is especially welcome. And there’s no better place to find seasonal food grown, canned, baked, dried and produced locally than a farmers market. Leelanau Farmers Market Association (LFMA), a nonprofit organization developed in 2000 by the Leelanau Agricultural Alliance in collaboration with Leelanau’s Michigan State University Extension, offers farmers markets five days a week in six locations within the county beginning in June: Empire, Glen Arbor, Lake Leelanau, Leland, Northport and Suttons Bay.
On June 7, actor Ramón Rodríguez was Leelanau School’s youngest ever commencement speaker—by far—and perhaps the one most likely to connect with the senior class, many of whom already knew him on television and on social media. In May, the New York Times wrote of Rodríguez’s “rakish good looks”; a couple days before returning to Glen Arbor he appeared on Conan, and agreed to send more ladies Conan’s way if the late-night talk show host would help the actor get more followers on Twitter.
A drought-stricken New Mexico town is the setting for writer Edward Helfers’ novel-in-progress. Helfers, the Glen Arbor Art Association’s (GAAA) Artist in Residence from June 1-14, will discuss his work done on his tale of tourists, pilgrims and an image of Jesus Christ that appears at the base of a local church, on Thursday, June 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Art Association, 6031 S. Lake St., Glen Arbor.
The Port Oneida Community Alliance was formed with the purpose to adaptively reuse the Port Oneida School and Kelderhouse Homestead as a community center and a teaching farm. The vision is to provide hands on opportunities for education, recreation and celebration of historical knowledge, environmental stewardship and sustainable agriculture in order to honor and perpetuate the legacy and community spirit of the resilient and loyal subsistence farmers who called Port Oneida their home.
Imagine 900 kayaks lying side by side in rows on the banks of Little Glen Lake near Glen Arbor. A few yards away, picture 900 bikes hanging in organized racks. Beyond the bikes looms the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore where 900 athletes, ranging from 14-71 years old and hailing from 15 states and countries as far away as Switzerland, will run up the famous “Dune Climb”. You are picturing the sixth annual M-22 Challenge, which features athletes competing in the “Most Beautiful Place in America”.