Five Days 'til the Feast

Visiting the Amish

Went up to the Amish in Gladwin today with a 4H group as they had their turkey's butchered in preparation for Thanksgiving. The group has been raising turkeys for several months and will be donating 15 to a local Catholic church to feed the community.

Hunting

For the last couple of days I've been hanging out with Steve and Sara Bober working on a little story about their relationship and hunting. The two are passionate bow hunters; Steve has been doing it for 35 years and taught himself when he began. At ten years-old, Sara started going with her dad and spending time in tree stands with him learning the ropes. At 12, she was hunting in a stand alone. Last year Steve said it was the happiest day in his hunting life when he couldn't make it home in time to hunt and Sara told him she was going out alone. Steve's seen his daughter go from student and daughter to a hunting partner. The two have been hitting these last weeks hard, hunting nearly every evening and sometimes in the mornings on weekends. Today was opening day of rifle season, but they chose to go out with their bows because the weather was nice and prefer being in a stand rather than in a blind. This photo is probably an outtake, but I liked it nonetheless.

Knight at CMU

Went over and hung out with some friends at Central Michigan University Saturday night. A group of us wandered over to a party at the other end of an apartment complex after we saw a dude in the parking lot with a medieval sword and people standing around in burger king crowns covered in tin-foil.

What Interests You? An Intro...

With one project winding down, another quick one coming up, I wanted to start working on another long-term story. Toying around with ideas of some huge issue, some social injustice, some news story, I decided I wanted to do a story on something that interested me. Something that may be fun, challenging, emotional, and something I could dedicate a lot of time to. Something that may challenge people and their view points in this community and something that may squelch stereotypes. So, of many genres of music that are out there, the world of hiphop has always intrigued me. After some research I found a hiphop group based in Midland. Quite possibly the only group as Flint and Saginaw are more notable for performers in the genre. I met one of the members yesterday while he was laying beats in his basement getting ready for an upcoming show. Self trained, watching this guy and hearing what he came up with in 1 minute of mixing samples was pretty amazing. We talked about the scene in Midland, or lack there of, how he's everything from artist to manager to producer to marketer, juggling family life with trying to schedule venues for shows. I wanted to post this as the first photo from the project that I'm hoping is a journey through these people's lives about what inspires them to continue to push themselves and what sacrifices they make for their music. It's only the first day, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully by posting this it won't jinx the project.

Midland Night's Dream

Post Season Upset

Meridian's Jon Vandenberg, right, sits in the locker room Saturday afternoon with teammate, Jordan Savage, during halftime of the Division 6 district final game against Montague. They were down 21-0 at the half and never recovered.

Playground Dedication

The playground at Carpenter Elementary School was donated by John Rapanos in honor of Mary Claire Nims, the principal of the school when Rapanos was a student. Shot students actually using the equipment instead of the dedication that will take place on November 10.

Mr. Valenta Turned 94

On his 94th birthday, Joe Valenta ties his shoes in preparation for a walk with his dog Buddy. Setting out from his home, Valenta and Buddy walk a little over a mile through his Midland neighborhood, four times a day. After his wife of 68 and-a-half years, Denise, passed away in January, Valenta's son, Robert, suggested to get a dog to keep him company. After initially disagreeing, he said, Valenta saw a lost-and-found notice listing a Shih Tzu. He placed a call to notify him if a claim was not made and saw the notice appear again several times. After the dog was relocated to a humane society in Brighton, Valenta and Robert took the trip and brought home Buddy.