Anne Stanton

Features Anne Stanton On a pretty, sunny afternoon 34 years ago, Pete Smith was at work
building a cabin in the woods north of Cadillac near M-55 and 33 Road.
Smith, a strapping 23-year-old, was running low on logs. He hopped in
his truck and went on a quiet ride down a two-track looking for more.
Twenty minutes later, he came upon a couple of well-dressed Italian
guys dressed in black.

Features Anne Stanton Evicted at Christmas
Woman with brain cancer may lose apartment over medical marijuana conflict
By Anne Stanton
A 49-year-old Elk Rapids woman suffering from brain cancer has been
threatened with eviction for growing medical marijuana in her bedroom
closet.

Features Anne Stanton Growing Up Quietly
How one family met the challenge of deafness
By Anne Stanton
Christmas was a wonderful time in the Hoxsie family; the three Hoxsie
kids would get up early to shake their presents thinking their
parents, who were deaf, couldn’t hear them. But somehow they knew.

Features Anne Stanton All in The Family?
Not so says U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak
By Anne Stanton
“Pure unadulterated bullshit.”
That’s how Rep. Bart Stupak, the normally amicable U.S. Congressman from Menominee, angrily responded to accusations made last week about his relationship with the “Family.”
And Stupak clearly doesn’t like the guy making the accusations—Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.
On November 24, Sharlet spoke on NPR’s Fresh Air Show about the Fellowship Foundation, or what’s also called the Family, a secret, evangelical group that works with politicians and powerbrokers to promote an ultra-conservative Christian agenda. He pulled Stupak into the interview because of his recent anti-abortion amendment, which he co-sponsored with Rep. Joe Pitts, a core Family member, Sharlet said.

Features Anne Stanton Loving and Loathing the Appalachian Trail
Two from TC go the distance
By Anne Stanton
On a 2,178-mile hike you think. Think, think, think.
For the first rainy and frigid month on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia, Tim Keenan thought incessantly about quitting. His trip kicked off on March 28, with an 8.8 mile walk just to get to the start of the real trail at Springer Mountain (and once there, he heard about a nearby parking lot). He thought about quitting the next morning at 5:30 when he dragged on his clothes, stiff, cold and damp from the day before.

Features Anne Stanton Will his anti-abortion amendment save health care reform, or wreck it?
U.S. Representative Bart Stupak is in the hot seat. Forty-one Democrats have signed a letter saying they won’t approve a final bill for affordable health care reform if it contains his abortion amendment.
Yet it was Rep. Stupak’s amendment that allowed the health reform bill to squeak through the house with a 215-210 vote on November 7. If the amendment is taken out of the final compromise bill, 64 Democrats say they won’t vote for it.
Could abortion be the issue that kills affordable health care reform?

Features Anne Stanton We Need Hugs, Not Shrugs
Hard times prompt us to re-examine our priorities
By Anne Stanton
Our country was pretty much founded on the competing doctrines of capitalism and Christianity, and it can feel stressful. Get rich and horde your money, the little devil on one shoulder says, while the little angel urges you to give your money to the poor, although not specifically mentioning Medicaid, public assistance, and Head Start.

Art Anne Stanton The treasure hunter: Fred Hiebert
Anne Stanton 11/9/09
The Treasure Hunter
Fred Hiebert rediscovered 21,000 pieces of lost
gold in Afghanistan


By Anne Stanton

As an archaeologist, Fred Hiebert has been under house arrest in Turkmenistan and narrowly escaped a chemical fire in Moscow. On his last visit to Afghanistan, his hotel windows cracked and broke from a bomb going off nearby. But one of his scariest moments was right here in Michigan, working along the I-75 freeway near Saginaw.
He and Kate Moore, who later became his wife, were University of Michigan students hired to determine if there were any buried artifacts that might prevent a highway from getting built across farmland.

Region Watch Anne Stanton Region Watch:Med pot grower faces trial/Want to tell a great story?
By Anne Stanton 11/9/09

Archie Kiel, a “caregiver” who grows marijuana plants for himself and several other medical marijuana patients, was arraigned in 13th Circuit Court last week on felony charges for growing more than the legal limit of plants.
He pled not guilty. Kiel has a jury status conference on December 9—the final date on whether he can decide to plead or go to trial.
Charged with manufacture of more than 20 plants and less than 200, Kiel of Rapid City will likely stand trial in December, unless the judge agrees to dismiss his case, said his attorney Ross Hickman.
Hickman says he wishes the prosecutor would just drop the case. “At best, here’s a guy who was trying to abide by the law, and thought he was and made a mistake. It’s certainly possible he didn’t make a mistake. It just doesn’t seem appropriate to hang him out to dry for this,” Hickman said.

Features Anne Stanton Fighting for Your Life
One alternative to drug rehab: boxing

By Anne Stanton 11/2/09

Why would you teach a kid who gets in fights at school how to fight even better?

To Dakotah Tarrant, a freshman at Traverse City Central Senior High, it makes all the sense in the world.

Features Anne Stanton DOUBT
Anne Avery Miller says she’s guilty of
a mental meltdown… but not murder

By Anne Stanton 11/2/09

The fate of Anne Avery Miller—an attractive barber from Elk Rapids who was suspected of killing her troubled 16-year-old son two years ago—depends on the outcome of an ongoing closed court proceeding.
The decision on whether to charge Miller, 39, will likely be made within a month, said Antrim County Prosecutor Charlie Koop.
It’s a decision long in coming. On November 7, 2007, Sam was found with a gunshot wound to his head. Police initially thought Sam committed suicide because he was devastated by the death of two friends and his boss. Shortly after his death, Miller turned in a suicide note that she found in one of Sam’s notebooks.

Features Anne Stanton Must Parents Pay for Kids’ Mistakes?
Yup, It’s the Law

By Anne Stanton 11/2/09

Got a teenager who’s had trouble with the law? Then be prepared to pay dearly for court-ordered fines and rehabilitation -- sometimes totaling tens of thousands of dollars.
Charging parents for their teen’s rehab and legal bills has the court of law behind it, said Frank Vandervort, clinical assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan.
“Even if the parent objects, and doesn’t think it’s appropriate, the court can override the parent’s prerogative. And the case law is very clear that the debt survives the kid well into adulthood,” he said.

Features Anne Stanton The High Cost of Toking
Anne Stanton 10/26/09

When the Express ran a cover story of Archie Kiel growing medical marijuana plants in Antrim County, people overwhelmingly responded with letters and phone calls with their own stories of marijuana and the law.
The following story is about the late Trevor Coddington and his odyssey through the Grand Traverse County probate system. It is by no means typical, but does show the consequences that attach not only to the child, but also to the family.
Part II is coming in November.

By Anne Stanton

Dan Coddington opened his door to his home in Traverse City’s central neighborhood, where he was babysitting his two-year-old granddaughter. She gleefully showed off her new coloring book.
Dan was not so happy.
Over on the counter were two cardboard boxes filled with papers that reflected the legal and financial challenges that began when his late son, Trevor, was caught smoking pot six years ago.
Trevor entered the Grand Traverse County probate court system for possession of marijuana at the age of 14. He was in and out of court-ordered drug rehabilitation for 15 months. His treatment and court fines added up to $53,054 and his divorced parents were billed the amount due, nearly $26,000 apiece. The total bill was later reduced by $8,593.

Features Anne Stanton A Weekend of Inspiration
The Great Lakes Bioneers Conference kicks off on Friday

By Anne Stanton 10/12/09

If you’ve always thought Traverse City has a huge contingent of people who want to do right by the planet, you’d be right.
Traverse City is one of only two cities in the state to host the upcoming national Bioneers Conference. Now in its eighth year, no city in the country has served as a satellite host for as long as Traverse City. Last year, the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference ushered in a record 1,000 people through its doors.
So what is Bioneers and what goes on at the Traverse City conference?

Features Anne Stanton Looking from the
Outside In
Author to talk in TC about growing up different

By Anne Stanton 10/12/09

In the memoir Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, Bich Minh Nguyen portrays herself as a shy, but keenly observant little girl, often bewildered by the world around her. Now at age 35, she is an author and associate professor, with speaking engagements across the country. She’ll be here in Traverse City on Wednesday, October 14, at the City Opera House to talk about the struggles of growing up in Grand Rapids with a funny name and a funnier religion--at least to everyone else.
Her story begins in Saigon the night before the city fell in 1975. Amid the rocket fire, her father, grandmother and uncles fled with eight-month-old Bich and her two-year-old sister, Anh. They left without a note for Bich’s mother, who lived apart from her father’s family, and about whom Bich often wondered while growing up.