Features

Features Erin Crowell Eighteen years later, the Remembrance Run returns to Timber Ridge Resort in Traverse City, on Saturday, Oct. 1, where participants will have the opportunity to raise both awareness and funds to help women fight breast cancer, along with other forms of cancer.

Features Patrick Sullivan “It’s destroyed my life, I mean, I was the major breadwinner in the family and I’m not now,” said Whitfield, the former IT director for the school district. “But just imagine how bad I would feel if something really bad was going on and I didn’t raise it.

Features Adam Fivenson When Rory Block performed at the Bay Theater in Suttons Bay 20 years ago, she probably never dreamed she’d be back two decades later to headline at a local venue which was still in its infancy at the time.

Features Patrick Sullivan The story of how the body of the Traverse City teenager was found in a sand pit on the eve of her 17th birthday was splashed over newspapers across the state, broadcast on television and radio throughout Michigan, and spawned at least four Facebook groups with over 10,000 members.

Features Rick Coates “Considering we host more than 1,000 events a year, most people might not even realize we are having a special celebration going on,” said Amy Reynolds, who coowns the store with her husband, Vic Herman. “The balloons might tip them off and we will have more events going on than we typically do in a given day.

Features Rick Coates Sarah Armstrong hurries home after work and grabs her camera bag and heads
out the door for her next shoot. A media consultant by day and
photographer by night, Armstrong is on a mission to photograph 231 women
from Northern Michigan for a new book and social media project.
Armstrong is not looking for societal supermodels for her project, just
women who who want to express their beauty regardless of size, shape or
age.

Features Patrick Sullivan MAN STABS SELF
A 50-year-old man who told police he was stabbed by robbers actually stabbed himself to cover up gambling losses.
The man first reported that he’d been stabbed and his wallet robbed as he walked on Eighth Street in TC at around 2:15 a.m. Sept. 2.
Police later learned the man stabbed himself in the abdomen because he didn’t want to tell his family he’d just lost over $1,000 at a casino, TC Police Capt. Brian Heffner said.

Features Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli The man, Pasquale Buzzelli, called me because he heard I wrote books. He
needed help getting his story down on paper. His name was the same as
mine—Buzzelli. Unusual, even as Italian surnames go. Coincidence, the
man said and we agreed to meet in New York City where I would listen to
what happened to him on September 11, 2001.

Features Rick Coates It was just seven years ago that Derek Bailey started work on a Ph.D
program at Central Michigan University when he felt that he could best
serve the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians by serving on
the Tribal Council.
Bailey left school and successfully won a seat on the board. It wasn’t
long before he was elected the youngest tribal chairman of the Grand
Traverse Band (GTB) since its reorganization in 1980.

Features Patrick Sullivan When the National September 11 Memorial is unveiled in New York City this
week, a Traverse City grad will get to show off his work.
Robert Jamieson grew up in TC and went to high school here. But he has
spent his professional life on the East Coast. Jamieson currently lives in
Philadelphia where he is head of store design for the upscale retailer
Anthropologie.

Features Erin Crowell I was 17 years old in my high school drama class, blindfolded and
awkwardly navigating the auditorium by voice of a classmate. It was one of
many activities created by our teacher meant to exercise communication,
reliance and the hope our partner wouldn’t lead us into a chair or brick
wall.
Blind trust, I like to call it today.

Features Erin Crowell Saviors of the Switchboard
It’s a cool, sunny Monday afternoon in August. The work gears are primed again as folks settle back into the 9-to-5 pace, taking a half hour for lunch, running errands and finishing projects left on-hold for the weekend.
Above the hustle, overlooking the Boardman River in a room bathed in darkness, the gears have never stopped for a group of people known as Central Dispatch, the consolidated emergency services answering point responsible for handling requests for law enforcement, fire and EMS agencies for the entire Grand Traverse County.
Whether it’s a fire, car accident or an emergency at home, every call to 9-1-1 in the county is directed to this room on the third level of the Governmental Center – an average of 125,000 total calls each year.

Features Patrick Sullivan ROCK THROWN AT COP
A Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s deputy who was driving down High Lake
Road near Supply Road was surprised by an object that was apparently
thrown from another vehicle and struck his windshield.
The deputy turned around, stopped the vehicle and interviewed the
occupants of the car after the incident, which happened after midnight on
Aug. 23.
A 19-year-old backseat passenger first told police that he threw a piece
of candy out of the window, Capt. Randy Fewless said. He later admitted to
throwing a rock at the marked patrol car, and he added that he did not
realize the car was a police car when he threw the rock.
The teenager was arrested on a charge of throwing an object at a vehicle.
The windshield needed to be replaced, Fewless said.

Features Kristi Kates It‘s difficult to believe that Raven Hill Discovery Center has been around for 20 years. The Center in East Jordan is one of those places intrinsic to Northern Michigan; it just seems like it‘s always been there, yet it manages to stay fresh and find new ways to introduce visitors to new discoveries.
Celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, co-founder Cheri Leach (with Tim Leach) explains how Raven Hill Discovery Center has evolved.

Features Patrick Sullivan Owners of medical marijuana collectives decided not to wait for the police to knock on their doors following last week’s court decision that, for now, puts an end to legal patient-to-patient sales of pot.
“We’re just telling (our customers) that due to the recent government ruling, we’ve been advised by our attorney not to be transferring medicine period,” said Steve Ezell, an employee at the Collective, a marijuana shop on State Street in TC.
Pot shops across the state are in jeopardy after the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Aug. 24 in favor of prosecutors in an Isabella County case and said the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act does not legalize the sale of marijuana for profit.
TC Police said they would look into the business practices at marijuana shops, but before they could, shops across town apparently closed.
That put around a dozen employees at the Collective out of work and left around 1,500 members who have a doctor’s prescription to use marijuana without a source for the drug.
The court ruling determined that the businesses are public nuisances and violate the state public health code, which is meant to protect citizens from hazards.
Ezell said he didn’t think the business he worked at ever posed a threat to the public. It opened last November.
“You’ll have to check with the Traverse City police, but I’m confident that there’s been zero incidents involving the Collective,” Ezell said.