Traverse City Record-Eagle

Opinion

February 6, 2012

Cheers: 02/06/2012

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• To Elnora Milliken, who received the 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce for her long support of the performing arts. The violinist led efforts that helped launch what is now the Traverse Symphony Orchestra in 1952 and the Old Town Playhouse in 1960. She "established the platform upon which other arts offerings have flourished," chamber board President Tony Anderson said.

• To the late Cliff Merrick, a Battle of the Bulge veteran from Kingsley who died in a Jan. 28 house fire. Merrick, 90, opened one of the first golf courses in Grand Traverse County and operated his own insurance agency for nearly 50 years before retiring in 1995. Merrick's World War II tour of duty took him to northern Africa, Sicily, Rome and France. He also helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp. "He was one of the most kind-hearted people," son Jim said.

• To city commissioners who have started holding regular "office hours" at the Governmental Center to chat with local citizens. Commissioners sign up for 2 to 4 p.m. shifts on Wednesdays following regular commission meetings, which are held on the first and third Mondays of the month. The next sessions are Wednesday and Feb. 28.

• To the Traverse City Planning Commission for beginning to draft a "Historic Resources Plan" to add to the city's master plan to emphasize the protection and preservation of historic architecture, open spaces and other sites in Traverse City. Planning Commission Chairman John Serratelli said the draft plan should be complete later this year.

• To photographer Mark Lindsay, of Kingsley, who found a 40-foot-long piece of hull while walking through the Sleeping Bear Dunes. The piece of shipwreck is believed to be from the Jennie and Annie, a schooner that went down in the Manitou Passage in 1872. That area is now a state underwater preserve and shipwrecks there are governed as if they were in a museum. Laura Quackenbush, a Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore museum technician, said the piece is one of several fragments of the wreck to wash ashore over the years.

• To the Herbert and Grace Dow Foundation for its three-year, $420,000 grant to the Inland Seas Education Association for scholarships. The grant will help 50 school classes come aboard the Inland Seas schoolship in 2012 for hands-on Great Lakes science lessons.

• To Marty Dagneau Bates, of Lake Ann, and Tully, her Glen of Imaal terrier, for placing in the top five of the breed and winning an award of excellence at December's invitation-only AKC/Eukanuba National Championship in Orlando.

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