Features

Features Ross Boisonneau

Classic. That word can describe many things: Music. Cuisine. Clothing.

It’s the lattermost that concerns Maurie Allen. Despite some rather, umm, flashy socks on display, the attire at Captain’s Quarters has always hewed toward apparel that is both stylish and timeless.

That’s why Captain’s Quarters was voted “Best Men’s Clothing Store” by Express readers in the Grand Traverse area.

Features Patrick Sullivan

Residents of Mayfield Township near Kingsley got creative a few years ago when they learned of a proposal to inject liquid industrial waste into a disposal well located in a field near the corner of of M-37 and M-113.

The township enacted an ordinance to require a special use permit for the disposal of industrial waste and amid public opposition, the owner of the well, Team Solutions of Kalkaska, backed off plans to dispose liquid waste from the shuttered Glen’s Landfill at the site.

Features Erin Crowell “We took a walk through the vineyards--and this sounds corny but it’s true--I picked up a dandy-lion and blew it,” said Fox. “Brody asked what I wished for and I said that we would spend our lives together...When I turned around he was down on his knee, with a box in hand!”

Features Patrick Sullivan Ten months after Keno was installed in the bar at VFW Cherryland Post 2780 in April, 2010, an audit discovered that $26,000 in gambling revenue was missing. The person who conducted that audit, Richard Thibeau, was then just a rank-and-file member, but he had an accounting degree and almost two decades of criminal investigation experience in the Army...

Features Rick Coates For the past 34 years Traverse City has hosted the annual St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl attracting not only locals but visitors from as far away as Petoskey. Now residents of Petoskey will have their own Pub Crawl this Friday, March 15 starting at 4 pm at Beards Brewery.

“I started discussing the idea with some of the bars and restaurants in Petoskey and they loved the idea,” said Charlie Ferguson, general manager of Northern Broadcasting.

Features Erin Crowell Traverse City Central High School senior Abbey Kaufman takes center stage as Elle Woods, the sweet, bubbly, sorority heroine of “Legally Blonde, The Musical,” a stage adaptation of the Broadway hit and film starring Reese Witherspoon.

The 17-year-old Kaufman beat out dozens of other young actresses to capture the lead role.The Express chatted with Kaufman—a sweet, soft-spoken girl, herself—to find out what it’s like to don pink and perform with an older cast.

Features Patrick Sullivan It was a hare-brained plan, and it failed in almost every way it could, except that no one got shot or killed.

There were six involved, and five went to the trailer that night, Feb. 28, 2012, a rundown, dingy-looking thing on a dead-end street across from a cemetery in the village of Wellston in Manistee County.

The plan was to rob the place to get a backpack that belonged to the woman. She was a medical marijuana patient, and they figured there was pot and cash in the bag.

Features Mike Terrell Northern Michigan, despite recent warmer winters, isn’t going to be thought of as a tropical zone anytime soon, but some who love to paddle don’t necessarily put their passion on hold until spring.

Those who like winter paddling seek the solitude and quiet beauty of area rivers adorned with a mantle of snow. They find the rewards are worth the risk and cold.

Features Rick Coates

The sturdy, box-shaped building at the corner of Eighth Street and Boardman Avenue in Traverse City looks like it was built to last. And it has -- almost 100 years. But in order to survive, it’s had to become a lot of things. It started as a cigar box factory, then it was a power company service building, then it was a furniture store and then a fitness center.

For the 21st century, the building recently took on another identity -- home.

Features Rick Coates

We caught up with a few of the headliners of this week’s Traverse City Winter Comedy Arts Festival and got their thoughts on comedy, coming to Traverse City and some of their future projects.

Features Patrick Sullivan Detroit News columnist Neal Rubin will be in Traverse City, March 5, to host the next National Writers Series event, an evening with Buzz Bissinger, a bestselling author whose book, “Friday Night Lights” was turned into a movie and an NBC television series. Although Bissinger takes the spotlight next month, we wanted to shine it on Rubin and find out more about this great columnist from the Detroit News.

Features Rick Coates

After a one year hiatus, Traverse City Winter Comedy Arts Festival is back and with a new partner, The National Cherry Festival.

“For all the right reasons, we’re taking our wintertime efforts that went into producing the Winter WOW!Fest over the past six years, and this year we’re putting them to great use by working together with the Traverse City Film Festival to make a world-class event that will benefit the entire community,” said Trevor Tkach, executive director of the National Cherry Festival.

Features Patrick Sullivan

There’s been a steady interest in John C. Mitchell’s book, “Grand Traverse The Civil War Era,” since it was published in 2011 but that interest has only picked up with the popularity of the movie “Lincoln” and renewed interest in the Civil War as events from that era celebrate 150 year anniversaries.

Mitchell sat down with the Express to talk about his book and his lifelong friendship with Peter Leonard, son of Detroit crime author Elmore Leonard.

Features Patrick Sullivan “The guy is dressed like a commando out of a bad movie,” Roote said. “He’s got on camo from head to toe, boots, and he’s got two shoulder holsters, each one holding a handgun, ready to draw at around chest high. You can’t imagine. I told my brother to get on the ground.

Features Erin Crowell

Not many couples spend their honeymoon getting married. But for Traverse City residents Rob Stow and Jeremy Evans, they were doing just that when they took a train from New York City to a courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut.

In August of 2009, the two gay men arrived and filled out the application that would legally bind them as a married couple, and handed it to the county clerk employee wearing a baseball cap.

“It was very mundane for her,” Stow chuckled. “It was so nonchalant.”