Features

Features Patrick Sullivan Circuit Court Judge Philip Rodgers went further, telling Bigger: “Did you live a big lifestyle? Were you sitting out next to the cement pond with a BMW parked in the driveway? No, you weren’t. You lived a pretty crummy lifestyle, from time to time in a camper in your daughter’s front driveway.

Features Patrick Sullivan Michael Knudsen and his friends had no reason to believe that death was waiting for them when they jumped into West Grand Traverse Bay inside a marina breakwall in August, 2011.

A $50 million lawsuit filed on behalf of Knudsen’s estate describes the teenager’s harrowing last few moments alive...

Features Robert Downes

Billy Strings was practically born into bluegrass: his mother’s water broke while she was attending a birthday party packed with musicians and baby Billy was born with the echo of guitars and banjos in his ears.

Either that or Billy made a deal with a dark stranger at a lonely crossroads at midnight… Whatever the case, he has an almost supernatural ability on guitar, banjo and mandolin that has set the region’s bluegrass and folk scene on fire.

Features Erin Crowell

Did you know? Long before Tim Allen was promoting Michigan with his smooth, hypnotic-like voice, our state’s first Pure Michigan campaign was drawing visitors as early as the 1800s.

On Friday, Nov. 16, Michael Federspiel will discuss how local entrepreneurs teamed with railroad and steamship companies to market the Little Traverse Bay region over 100 years ago.

Features Patrick Sullivan In August, bulldozers and graders and dump trucks rumbled along Wood Road to a parcel that used to be part woods and part meadow. To the utter surprise of most neighbors, workers started construction of a deep-shale, horizontal fracturing natural gas well at the site, located in Kalkaska County’s Rapid River Township.

Features Rick Coates It was two years ago this week that Liz (Larios) Horn’s life was turned upside down. What seemed like a scene out of a movie became a reality as U.S. Immigration and Enforcement agents arrived in black suits and vehicles to the home Horn shared with her boyfriend Russell Horn.

Features Robert Downes

Fresh from the recording studio with a brand-new hollow-body Gretsch guitar strapped to her back, couldn’t be happier with the way things are going with her music.

She’s been working on her first CD since July and is currently enjoying the kind of wordof-mouth buzz that is bringing her and a new generation of singer-songwriters to the forefront of the music scene in Northern Michigan.

Features Erin Crowell Like (and unlike) many people my age, I don’t have children. I have a dog. And even though Charley, my four-year-old border collie/lab mix, doesn’t serve to supplement my lack of offspring, she does, however, take the form of a quasi child.

Both require discipline, time, love and poop duty.

Features Patrick Sullivan Tina Marie Stoll faces charges of armed robbery, her fate literally hanging by a hair. She left for Tennessee days after the robbery, but was brought back to Michigan once lab tests confirmed a hair found at the crime scene matched her mitochondrial DNA profile.

Features Patrick Sullivan The race for the Michigan’s 1st Congressional seat is one of the hardest fought in the nation this election cycle, and the result is that Michigan residents from Marquette to Manistee have been besieged with television advertisements from each of them and political organizations working on their behalf.

Features Northern Express Community

If you've ever tried crossing Division Street as a pedestrian, or have endured its half-mile-long traffic jams during rush hour, you know that this is a highway in need of re-invention.

TC Proposition 1 offers a solution 'down the road,' but would involve giving up a strip of parkland along Division. The proposal has aroused passions both for and against. Following are the thoughts of four noteworthy citizens:

Features Patrick Sullivan

It appeared at first to be a crime that made no sense at all. A man was attacked on the side of a rural road in East Bay Township southeast of Traverse City Aug. 12, stabbed over 20 times and left to stagger to a nearby house to call for help.

Features Erin Crowell

For awhile, all I hear is the rustling of dry corn stalks in the wind. Then, I hear the laughter of a child somewhere toward the west. I can’t see anyone, but I know they are wandering like me through this maze of maize.

Features Robert Downes Her 2006 book, “Infidel,” detailed her childhood in the self-destructing nation of Somalia and her subsequent flight to the Netherlands at the age of 21 to escape an arranged marriage to an older man she despised.

Features Patrick Sullivan A 2,000-square-foot home in a subdivision outside of Traverse City and full-time jobs at nonprofit organizations didn’t add up to a satisfying life for Rolf and Mari von Walthausen.