11/27/2006

Editorial

Cheers

• To the many community volunteers who helped the Father Fred Foundation and Community Meals Program serve traditional Thanksgiving dinners to hundreds of people and shut-ins in the Grand Traverse area on Wednesday night and Thursday. The Father Fred Foundation expected 700 for dinner Wednesday night. The Community Meals Program cooked and delivered 900 meals around the region and also served a sit-down dinner to 300 people at Trinity Lutheran.

• To Michelle Jokinen, whose wish to make Christmas brighter for U.S. soldiers in Iraq snowballed into collection efforts at Norris Elementary School and West Senior High School and Munson Medical Center, as well as churches and local businesses. It started when Jokinen asked local recruiters what she could do. In November, she sought help via the Record-Eagle's Northern Notes column. Sandi Turnquist, a mother of three Norris students, saw the news item and volunteered to coordinate the school donation drive. The packages will go to about 200 Marines stationed along the border between Iraq and Syria.

• To Crawford County's Grayling Township for deciding to hire a part-time zoning enforcement officer to clean up blight. The new officer will focus on the township's ordinances, especially those regarding junk cars, abandoned appliances and other rubbish that often builds up in the yards of some township residents.

• To 20-year-old Holly Werlein of Gaylord, a recent liver transplant recipient, who spends much of her time now with physical therapists and doctors working to keep her healthy as she recovers from the operation and exercises to heal and get stronger. She's also taking a physics class through North Central Michigan College's program in Gaylord and is an advocate for organ donor programs. She has a lot of tenacity and a great attitude that can only help her healing process.

• To all the people who make it possible and who advocate for adoption programs that place children in healthy, caring environments. The world has too many children in need of good parents, and there are many people who want children and would make wonderful parents.

• To Torch Lake residents and Torchfest organizer Jason Price who reached a court settlement that ends future concerts unless endorsed by the organization that filed suit against him to stop them. Price staged three Fourth of July rock concerts on the sand bar at the southern end of the lake. Residents formed the Torch Lake Protection Alliance in opposition and took Price to court last summer. He said he lost several sponsors and about $7,500.

• To a pair of Michigan State Police troopers for their quick action in disarming a Kalkaska man without using fatal force after he threatened a woman with a gun and then threatened them when they tracked him to his motor home in rural Kalkaska County. He now faces eight felonies and is jailed in lieu of $500,000 bond. The ending could have been a lot more serious.