Traverse City Record-Eagle

Archive: Monday

April 12, 2009

Editorial: Cheers & Jeers: 04/13/2009

Cheers

-- To Munson Medical Center for being named to a list of 100 top hospitals for the 11th time. The award came from the health care information and research company Thomson Reuters. Munson has appeared on the list more times than any other Michigan hospital. Only five hospitals nationwide have earned the designation 11 or more times. Mercy Hospital Cadillac, part of the Munson Healthcare system, made the list for the first time. Thomson Reuters also recognized Munson as one of 23 Everest Award for National Benchmarks winners. The award, in its first year, establishes Munson as a hospital other hospitals are measured against.

-- To the TC Reads program for choosing "The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas" as its eighth annual community book. The book, by local author Jerry Dennis, is a natural and cultural history of the Great Lakes based on a sailing trip from Traverse City to Maine and other research.

-- To Elmwood Township for working for developing a wheelchair-friendly beach at the Greilickville Harbor Park. The township plans to add a barrier-free walkway to the sand, a path of special mats to the water, a three-dimensional relief map of the park with Braille, pavilions and parking areas designed for people with disabilities.

-- To Michael Moore and all the State Theatre volunteers who helped staff the movie house during Easter break and the Michigan State University "Final Four" basketball games. Downtown was a hopping place at a time when the winter blues can get mighty strong.

-- To the Leelanau Conservation District, the Leelanau Conservancy, the Leelanau Enterprise and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians for sponsoring the second annual Leelanau Cherry Blossom Tour May 16. It's a free event and includes stops at farms near Omena and northern Suttons Bay Township, where farmers will explain their work.

-- To 13-year-old Tori Fisher, a Traverse City East Middle School eighth-grader, who nearly made it to the final round of the Michigan Geographic Bee. Fisher missed one question during a preliminary round at the Kalamazoo contest and qualified for a tiebreaker competition; she survived two rounds before incorrectly answering a question about Switzerland. Only 10 of 105 competitors made it to the final round.

-- To Emily Ackerman, a 2004 Elk Rapids High School graduate who won a Fulbright scholarship to attend graduate school in Linz, Austria, in the fall. Ackerman will graduate from Kalamazoo College with a bachelor's degree in economics.

Jeers

-- To whoever is responsible for shooting roughly 20 windows out of parked cars in and around Kingsley with a BB gun. The shootings follow a long string of similar attacks in the Traverse City area. Anyone with information is asked to call the Silent Observer at 947-TIPS or the sheriff's department at 995-5019.

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