Ah, October.
The leaves are changing, the air is crisp, and the Detroit Tigers can watch the World Series from the comfort of their La-Z-Boys on their big-screen TVs at home – again.
The temperatures may be cooling down, but political races are heating up as the calendar speeds toward Nov. 4.
The August primaries resulted in more than a couple surprises, and I’m guessing there may be a few more in the general election.
Like we did in the run-up to August, The Chelsea Standard will bring readers profiles of the different races.
As a general policy, this newspaper does not endorse candidates.
Having been the editor at small community papers in the past, I think that’s wise.
In a close-knit community, feelings can be too easily bruised, and the newspaper’s position as a neutral observer can suffer.
After all, we reporters have to work with these people and depend on them for information, and if they feel they have been slighted in any way, they can just clam up.
Not a good way to do business.
That’s why we do the candidate Q&As.
While they may not make for the most compelling reading, they at least give voters a little bit of information on which they can base their decision, and they are in the candidates' own words.
It’s better than going into the ballot box, staring at the list of names and marking a box, almost at random.
You may as well pick a name out of a hat, and how can the democratic process survive by doing that?
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Farewell to Huehl Acres, but not to Adopt-A-Farm
The intent of the Chelsea Standard’s participation in the Adopt-A-Farm program is to make the public more aware of the challenges faced by family farms.
Looking back over the past 12 months of stories about Huehl Acres, I realize just how much I’ve learned about farm life, and hopefully readers have, too.
Jerry and Denny Huehl have been extraordinarily gracious hosts, inviting this city kid onto their farm or into their homes every month for some pretty close scrutiny and the occasional dumb question.
I’ve learned some valuable lessons, such as to always keep an eye on where I’m walking, and, related to that, always carry boots in my truck.
If not for these stories I never would have ridden in and taken photos from a 30-foot-wide John Deere combine, or watch a cow have its hooves trimmed, or get sneezed on by a calf with a respiratory ailment.
And I’m happy to report, due to a very positive response from farmers and non-farmers alike, I have agreed to continue this monthly series of stories.
I’ll be reporting on a different local farm, with a different kind of operation: Mike and Kathy Fusilier's greenhouse and produce farm near Manchester. There is always more to learn in this business.
I am sincerely thankful for the kind and patient assistance shown me by the Huehl brothers and their wives, Carol and Sue; to farm assistants Nelson Bollinger and Rachel Girbach; and to Kathy Siler, Communications Committee chair for the Washtenaw County Farm Bureau, who came to us with the idea a year ago.
We started in June, with the corn and soybeans already in the ground and the brothers bringing in the first cutting of alfalfa.
This month we’ve come full circle, by planting the beans and corn.
This has been a very eye-opening experience for me, an opportunity I’m truly grateful to have been offered.
I hope I’ve been able to convey to our readers at least some sense of the challenges facing local farmers.
Hopefully, now we all have a better appreciation of where our food comes from — not just from some corporate conglomerate out in Kansas or California or even China, but from our neighbors.
Looking back over the past 12 months of stories about Huehl Acres, I realize just how much I’ve learned about farm life, and hopefully readers have, too.
Jerry and Denny Huehl have been extraordinarily gracious hosts, inviting this city kid onto their farm or into their homes every month for some pretty close scrutiny and the occasional dumb question.
I’ve learned some valuable lessons, such as to always keep an eye on where I’m walking, and, related to that, always carry boots in my truck.
If not for these stories I never would have ridden in and taken photos from a 30-foot-wide John Deere combine, or watch a cow have its hooves trimmed, or get sneezed on by a calf with a respiratory ailment.
And I’m happy to report, due to a very positive response from farmers and non-farmers alike, I have agreed to continue this monthly series of stories.
I’ll be reporting on a different local farm, with a different kind of operation: Mike and Kathy Fusilier's greenhouse and produce farm near Manchester. There is always more to learn in this business.
I am sincerely thankful for the kind and patient assistance shown me by the Huehl brothers and their wives, Carol and Sue; to farm assistants Nelson Bollinger and Rachel Girbach; and to Kathy Siler, Communications Committee chair for the Washtenaw County Farm Bureau, who came to us with the idea a year ago.
We started in June, with the corn and soybeans already in the ground and the brothers bringing in the first cutting of alfalfa.
This month we’ve come full circle, by planting the beans and corn.
This has been a very eye-opening experience for me, an opportunity I’m truly grateful to have been offered.
I hope I’ve been able to convey to our readers at least some sense of the challenges facing local farmers.
Hopefully, now we all have a better appreciation of where our food comes from — not just from some corporate conglomerate out in Kansas or California or even China, but from our neighbors.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
This is why I became a reporter
It’s been a busy week around here, but it’s been ultimately satisfying.
If you are reading this, I’m sure you’ve already seen our exclusive Web coverage of “The Fire,” or possibly read about it in the May 8 print edition.
An incident like the Chelsea Shopping Center fire doesn’t happen very often – thank the gracious Lord – but it reminded me of why I got into this crazy business in the first place, and why I’ve been crazy enough to stick with it for so long.
I’ve covered a number of fires during my career, but none like the one I witnessed Monday.
Never in more than 16 years have I seen a place that, by all rights, should be a smoldering pile of charred rubble.
Journalists like to say that they’ve seen everything, that nothing bothers them.
I’m not one of those guys. I broke a few rules by getting too close to the smoke trying to get photos, and spent the rest of the day coughing my lungs out.
And I still haven’t told my wife about the hole burned in one of my best shirts from flying embers. Let’s just keep that between us,OK?
Watching the flames race across the roof of the strip mall from Pamida to the Chelsea Grille in a matter of minutes was stunning.
Seeing two Chelsea firefighters come within three seconds of being crushed by the collapse of the brick façade in front of Hicks Cleaners and Aleko’s Carryout was frightening.
Learning that no one was injured in the blaze was gratifying.
Being asked by fire officials to share our photos and video to assist in the investigation was rewarding.
I wish all the luck in the world to the merchants affected by the fire, and hope they can be back in business as quickly as possible.
As strange as it might sound, the fire was a big help to me.
Over the past several weeks I was getting more and more frustrated with things around here, much of which is out of my hands anyway.
I was losing my focus and committing a string of silly bush-league errors, and se-riously questioning my career choice.
I even scheduled some time off for later this week just so I could get the hell away from here.
But when that fire alarm came over the scanner at 12:46 p.m. May 5, all of that nonsense evaporated and I immediately reverted to the professional that I am ca-pable of being.
Now I can take a few days off and truly relax. Just don’t let the town burn down while I’m gone.
If you are reading this, I’m sure you’ve already seen our exclusive Web coverage of “The Fire,” or possibly read about it in the May 8 print edition.
An incident like the Chelsea Shopping Center fire doesn’t happen very often – thank the gracious Lord – but it reminded me of why I got into this crazy business in the first place, and why I’ve been crazy enough to stick with it for so long.
I’ve covered a number of fires during my career, but none like the one I witnessed Monday.
Never in more than 16 years have I seen a place that, by all rights, should be a smoldering pile of charred rubble.
Journalists like to say that they’ve seen everything, that nothing bothers them.
I’m not one of those guys. I broke a few rules by getting too close to the smoke trying to get photos, and spent the rest of the day coughing my lungs out.
And I still haven’t told my wife about the hole burned in one of my best shirts from flying embers. Let’s just keep that between us,OK?
Watching the flames race across the roof of the strip mall from Pamida to the Chelsea Grille in a matter of minutes was stunning.
Seeing two Chelsea firefighters come within three seconds of being crushed by the collapse of the brick façade in front of Hicks Cleaners and Aleko’s Carryout was frightening.
Learning that no one was injured in the blaze was gratifying.
Being asked by fire officials to share our photos and video to assist in the investigation was rewarding.
I wish all the luck in the world to the merchants affected by the fire, and hope they can be back in business as quickly as possible.
As strange as it might sound, the fire was a big help to me.
Over the past several weeks I was getting more and more frustrated with things around here, much of which is out of my hands anyway.
I was losing my focus and committing a string of silly bush-league errors, and se-riously questioning my career choice.
I even scheduled some time off for later this week just so I could get the hell away from here.
But when that fire alarm came over the scanner at 12:46 p.m. May 5, all of that nonsense evaporated and I immediately reverted to the professional that I am ca-pable of being.
Now I can take a few days off and truly relax. Just don’t let the town burn down while I’m gone.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Disintegrating Democrats in disarray
The people of the Chelsea and Dexter areas can be very proud of themselves.
With voter participation in Tuesday’s primary election running in the 25 to 30 percent range — and more in some precincts, we outdid the overall county turnout of 22.6 percent.
That’s pretty remarkable, when you consider the voter turnout in an ordinary primary struggles to reach double digits.
Perhaps it’s the extraordinary nature of this particular election.
I hope the head honchos of the state Democratic Party realize that, in their rush to change the rules in order to be among the first states to have a primary, they may have fallen victim to the Law of Unintended Consequences.
It sounded like a good idea at first: to have more of a say in determining a front-runner going into the summer convention, but the national party laid down such punitive restrictions that we ended up with a choice of Hillary, Dennis, Chris, Mike and Uncommitted, whoever that was.
Clinton was the only candidate of stature on the ballot, Barack Obama decided not to waste his time and money here, Kucinich is more of a perennial punchline than a viable candidate, and the other guys were just names taking up space.
Worse, Uncommitted got more votes than Clinton.
Not one of democracy’s shining moments.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have for years aligned myself more closely to Democrats than Republicans, but it became clear in this election what my GOP friends have been trying to tell me for years.
Democrats (or the party leaders, more specifically) don’t seem to have a clue.
Republicans may not agree with each other on a lot of things, but at least they’re all going in the same general direction while they debate those differences.
They come up with a plan, and they stick to it.
Apparently Democrats are so concerned these days with accommodating every possible viewpoint that they are incapable of developing a coherent, recognizable viewpoint at all.
They don’t have a plan, and they can’t agree on a plan on how to come up with one.
It makes me wonder: If this is the best way they can run an election, how in the world would they run the country?
With voter participation in Tuesday’s primary election running in the 25 to 30 percent range — and more in some precincts, we outdid the overall county turnout of 22.6 percent.
That’s pretty remarkable, when you consider the voter turnout in an ordinary primary struggles to reach double digits.
Perhaps it’s the extraordinary nature of this particular election.
I hope the head honchos of the state Democratic Party realize that, in their rush to change the rules in order to be among the first states to have a primary, they may have fallen victim to the Law of Unintended Consequences.
It sounded like a good idea at first: to have more of a say in determining a front-runner going into the summer convention, but the national party laid down such punitive restrictions that we ended up with a choice of Hillary, Dennis, Chris, Mike and Uncommitted, whoever that was.
Clinton was the only candidate of stature on the ballot, Barack Obama decided not to waste his time and money here, Kucinich is more of a perennial punchline than a viable candidate, and the other guys were just names taking up space.
Worse, Uncommitted got more votes than Clinton.
Not one of democracy’s shining moments.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have for years aligned myself more closely to Democrats than Republicans, but it became clear in this election what my GOP friends have been trying to tell me for years.
Democrats (or the party leaders, more specifically) don’t seem to have a clue.
Republicans may not agree with each other on a lot of things, but at least they’re all going in the same general direction while they debate those differences.
They come up with a plan, and they stick to it.
Apparently Democrats are so concerned these days with accommodating every possible viewpoint that they are incapable of developing a coherent, recognizable viewpoint at all.
They don’t have a plan, and they can’t agree on a plan on how to come up with one.
It makes me wonder: If this is the best way they can run an election, how in the world would they run the country?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tragedy strikes a small town
By now you probably know that a Dexter teenager died Tuesday from injuries he suffered in a car crash outside Dexter High School.
The death of 16-year-old Tyler Steffey was a shock to the school system and to the community as a whole.
It is always difficult to see something like this happen at an otherwise joyful time of year.
Compounding the pain of his loss is the injuries his two companions suffered when the car they were in slid off Parker Road into a stand of trees near the high school entrance.
News travels fast in a small town, especially bad news like this.
I reported the breaking news Tuesday on our Web site, and readers will be able to see the story and photos in Thursday’s print edition of the newspaper.
It is still too early to say exactly what caused the accident, but I will follow up with the sheriff’s department and the school district on questions that have been raised.
Our office has already heard speculation on the cause and why the three teens were out of school at mid-morning, but I operate on facts, not rumor and innuendo.
To do otherwise would add unnecessarily to the pain their families are already suffering.
When I have information that can be verified, I will pass it along to you.
All that aside, it presents an opportunity to remind everyone – teens and adults alike ‑ of the dangers of driving in poor weather conditions.
It doesn’t matter how experienced you are behind the wheel, things can get out of control literally in the blink of an eye.
There is a whole lot of winter driving ahead of us, so let’s remember to be careful out there.
The death of 16-year-old Tyler Steffey was a shock to the school system and to the community as a whole.
It is always difficult to see something like this happen at an otherwise joyful time of year.
Compounding the pain of his loss is the injuries his two companions suffered when the car they were in slid off Parker Road into a stand of trees near the high school entrance.
News travels fast in a small town, especially bad news like this.
I reported the breaking news Tuesday on our Web site, and readers will be able to see the story and photos in Thursday’s print edition of the newspaper.
It is still too early to say exactly what caused the accident, but I will follow up with the sheriff’s department and the school district on questions that have been raised.
Our office has already heard speculation on the cause and why the three teens were out of school at mid-morning, but I operate on facts, not rumor and innuendo.
To do otherwise would add unnecessarily to the pain their families are already suffering.
When I have information that can be verified, I will pass it along to you.
All that aside, it presents an opportunity to remind everyone – teens and adults alike ‑ of the dangers of driving in poor weather conditions.
It doesn’t matter how experienced you are behind the wheel, things can get out of control literally in the blink of an eye.
There is a whole lot of winter driving ahead of us, so let’s remember to be careful out there.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Don’t look now ‑ here comes Santa Claus
Like a lot of folks, I’m sure, this festive season happens to be my favorite time of year.
As soon as I see the lights and decorations go up on homes, businesses and streets in the various communities I visit, I feel like I’m holding onto the robe of the Spirit of Christmas Past.
Although Chelsea is a little bit behind other places in displaying its electric holiday glitter this year, City Manager John Hanifan assured me after Tuesday’s City Council meeting that the situation would be remedied immediately.
“We were going to do it a while ago, but the weather wouldn’t let us,” he said.
I understand perfectly, John; I still had leaves to rake up and put in my garden, but they are now frozen solid under a cold, white blanket.
Bad weather or good, it sounds like Chelsea will be a great place to be this weekend for residents and visitors alike.
The Chamber of Commerce’s annual Chelsea Hometown Holidays takes place Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and is jammed with activities to fill you with the Christmas spirit.
The main events are Friday’s tree-lighting ceremony in Pierce Park at 6 p.m., followed by the arrival of the head honcho himself; and the Holiday Light Parade at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Things get toned down and tuned up Sunday, with skating with Santa, a holiday ice show, concerts and carols.
In between, there’s a ton of activities happening each day, literally all over town.
If all these things put you in the mood to finish up your Christmas shopping, great.
But if nothing else, they should cause you to slow down, unplug from your hectic everyday schedule and enjoy the sights and sounds of my favorite season.
As soon as I see the lights and decorations go up on homes, businesses and streets in the various communities I visit, I feel like I’m holding onto the robe of the Spirit of Christmas Past.
Although Chelsea is a little bit behind other places in displaying its electric holiday glitter this year, City Manager John Hanifan assured me after Tuesday’s City Council meeting that the situation would be remedied immediately.
“We were going to do it a while ago, but the weather wouldn’t let us,” he said.
I understand perfectly, John; I still had leaves to rake up and put in my garden, but they are now frozen solid under a cold, white blanket.
Bad weather or good, it sounds like Chelsea will be a great place to be this weekend for residents and visitors alike.
The Chamber of Commerce’s annual Chelsea Hometown Holidays takes place Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and is jammed with activities to fill you with the Christmas spirit.
The main events are Friday’s tree-lighting ceremony in Pierce Park at 6 p.m., followed by the arrival of the head honcho himself; and the Holiday Light Parade at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Things get toned down and tuned up Sunday, with skating with Santa, a holiday ice show, concerts and carols.
In between, there’s a ton of activities happening each day, literally all over town.
If all these things put you in the mood to finish up your Christmas shopping, great.
But if nothing else, they should cause you to slow down, unplug from your hectic everyday schedule and enjoy the sights and sounds of my favorite season.
Monday, November 19, 2007
A Thanksgiving smorgasbord
A lot has been happening around here the last couple of weeks, and given the season, there are reasons to be thankful for all of them.
The Chelsea School Board gave the green light to important changes for kindergarteners and high schoolers.
Obviously the kindergarten issue is a Very Big Deal.
Even though I had a hard time believing it myself, I’ve studied the research that school officials used and it is irrefutable that our youngest citizens will be better off with the additional kindergarten class time.
Congrats to North Creek Principal Marcus Kaemming, School Board President Laurel McDevitt and all the other folks who made it happen.
As a bonus, North Creek will undergo a makeover as new classrooms are built to handle the increase in students. Stay tuned for developments on that.
MSU was on a trimester schedule when I attended in the early ’80s, and I found it to be advantageous.
For Chelsea High School students, the opportunity to have fewer classes per day but end up with more classes by the end of the year should be pretty appealing, especially considering the extra classes in math, science and social studies the state now requires.
I’m thankful the parents of this community care enough about their kids’ education to be involved in the community forums and meetings that led to those decisions.
And hats off to Ronald Weiser, Digger O’Dell and Fred Mills as Citizen of the Year and tandem Lifetime Achievement Award winners.
While Weiser’s pet project, the Clocktower complex, will be a focal point of the community for decades to come, the work done by the others (veterans affairs in O’Dell’s case and Chelsea Schools for Mills) is much more under the radar but has just as much impact on Chelsea’s future.
We all should be thankful that these men (and many more people we don’t know about) are quietly working among us.
That brings me to Thursday’s main event:
May we have the vision to see the wonderful people all around us, and have the grace to be truly thankful for each and every one of them.
The Chelsea School Board gave the green light to important changes for kindergarteners and high schoolers.
Obviously the kindergarten issue is a Very Big Deal.
Even though I had a hard time believing it myself, I’ve studied the research that school officials used and it is irrefutable that our youngest citizens will be better off with the additional kindergarten class time.
Congrats to North Creek Principal Marcus Kaemming, School Board President Laurel McDevitt and all the other folks who made it happen.
As a bonus, North Creek will undergo a makeover as new classrooms are built to handle the increase in students. Stay tuned for developments on that.
MSU was on a trimester schedule when I attended in the early ’80s, and I found it to be advantageous.
For Chelsea High School students, the opportunity to have fewer classes per day but end up with more classes by the end of the year should be pretty appealing, especially considering the extra classes in math, science and social studies the state now requires.
I’m thankful the parents of this community care enough about their kids’ education to be involved in the community forums and meetings that led to those decisions.
And hats off to Ronald Weiser, Digger O’Dell and Fred Mills as Citizen of the Year and tandem Lifetime Achievement Award winners.
While Weiser’s pet project, the Clocktower complex, will be a focal point of the community for decades to come, the work done by the others (veterans affairs in O’Dell’s case and Chelsea Schools for Mills) is much more under the radar but has just as much impact on Chelsea’s future.
We all should be thankful that these men (and many more people we don’t know about) are quietly working among us.
That brings me to Thursday’s main event:
May we have the vision to see the wonderful people all around us, and have the grace to be truly thankful for each and every one of them.
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