Traverse City Record-Eagle

Archive: Monday

March 22, 2010

Editorial: Cheers: 03/22/2010

-- To Austin Wolfgram for correctly spelling "meloplasty" and winning the Record-Eagle Grand Traverse Regional Spelling Bee. The 13-year-old Elk Rapids student at Cherryland Middle School now will represent the area at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., in June. He out-spelled 29 other middle-school students from Antrim, Charlevoix, Grand Traverse, Emmet, Kalkaska and Leelanau counties. Other winners were: Nicole Blakkan-Esser, 11, Traverse City West Middle School, second place; and Canyon O'Brien, 13, Grand Traverse Academy, third place.

-- To Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency*, the Father Fred Foundation and Grand Traverse County Commission on Aging, which have paid out more than $350,000 over the winter to help low-income and unemployed area residents in northwest Lower Michigan pay heating bills and avoid electricity shutoffs. Cheers, too, to area food pantries, churches and other helping agencies.

-- To students in the five-county Grand Traverse region for scoring above the state average in all areas on standardized Michigan tests taken last fall. Math proficiency in Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School Districts schools rose from 78 percent in 2005 to 87 percent last fall. Reading climbed from 85 percent to 91 percent.

-- To three area economic development organizations for working together to seek federal funding to expand broadband Internet service in the region. Recent research shows that fewer than 60 percent of households in the five-county region have access to high-speed Internet service. That's below the state average of 78 percent, which puts northern Michigan at a competitive disadvantage in attracting economic growth. The cooperating agencies are the Traverse Bay Area Economic Development Corp., Northern Lakes Economic Alliance and the Manistee County Alliance for Economic Success.

-- To organizers and participants in the Daylight Saving Clean Up and Green Up spring cleaning in Traverse City March 15. Michigan Green Consortium sponsored the recycling effort. Participating recyclers included volunteers from Home Depot, Team Elmer's and Odom Reusable Building Materials in Grawn.

-- To Northwestern Michigan College students for their play about the Seneca Falls Convention, an early and influential women's rights meeting in New York in 1848. Phi Theta Kappa honor society members portrayed Elizabeth Cady Stanton, James and Lucretia Mott, and Frederick Douglass, all pioneers for women's equality. The event was co-sponsored by The Women's History Project of Northwest Michigan, NMC's Phi Theta Kappa chapter and the American Association of University Women. Vintage clothing came from collections of local resident Nancy Bordine and the Grand Traverse Heritage Center.

-- To Valma Davis, who hands out her thanks via batches and dozens of baked goods to Bay Area Transportation Authority drivers and staff. She even throws in recipes for her much-appreciated cookies, cakes, no bakes and other treats she concocts once a month for the public transportation workers.

Clearing the Record

Because of an editor’s error, the Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency was originally incorrectly identified above.

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