The Ontonagon Herald

1 _____Volume 128 No. 52$ CopyWednesday, December 30, 2009 Ontonagon , Michigan 49953_____TheOntonagon Herald Serving Ontonagon County and Surrounding areas since 1881 Classifieds .. 13 Editor Page .. 3 Kid s Page .. 14 Obituaries .. 6 Sports .. 10, 11 Sudoku Mania .. 2 Sudoku Solution .. 6 Year in Review .. 8, 9 IndexNewspaperdelivery problems?If you are having trouble receiving yourOntonagon Herald in a timely manner, pleasecontact the Postal Service ComplaintDepartment at EARLYDEADLINE NOTICEDue to the New Year Holiday, all adsand articles must be in the Heraldoffice Wednesday, December30forinclusion in the following week Gogebic Chamber honorsmember and citizen of the yearSubmitted by Chamber Treasurer,Dick ArmstrongThe Lake Gogebic Area Cham-ber of Commerce held its annualmeeting at the Konteka in WhitePine, December 6, with the namingof the Citizen of the Year and Cham-ber Member of the Year along withthe election of officers and Fullman, OttawaNational Forest Ranger and BillBaer.

2 Ottawa National Forest Recre-ation Manager were presented withthe chamber Citizen of the Year Award for their support in the devel-opment of Multi-Use trails in theLake Gogebic Area as well as beingactive on the National Ski Patrol,Bessemer Fire Department, localsearch and rescue, the Ottawa His-torical Center in Bergland andactive in the Back Country Horse-man Association and Searles from West ShoreResort was honored with the Cham-ber Member of the Year award forhis long service on the board ofdirectors, 15 years of activity insnowmobile trail signing and brush-ing, building and donating snowmo-bile trail map boxes and fish displaycases for the chamber booth at sportshows, is chairperson of the Cham-ber s Communications Committeeand a member of the fishing com-mittee.

3 He has placed fish cribs forthe Lake Improvement Associationand writes articles for the Gogebic2008 Chamber Citizen of the Year Tom Chase presents MelanieFullman and Bill Baer with the 2009 Citizen of the Year Award .Chamber Treasurer Dick Armstrong presents Ron Searles with the2009 Chamber Member of the Year afternoon at the museumBy Anne SussexWhat kind of excitement could aperson expect at the Ontonagonmuseum on a cold wintry Saturdayafternoon? Plenty if you were luckyenough to stop by last Stevens, who now informsme that he is 10, spent the afternoon,playing four different instrumentsand making the day merry andbright. Young Mr. Stevens who is afifth grader at Land O Lakes ele-mentary school says he likes com-ing to the museum to play the musi-cal instruments.

4 This was his secondvisit to the museum and this time agroup of people were waiting to seewhat he was going to play. Thisreporter had a favorite piece ofmusic dating back quite a few looked at the music and saidhe hadn t played it before. The firsttime was a bit hesitant, but by thethird time he played UnchainedMelody so well that visitor LindaKoski sang along while he played the pump organ,and his Christmas songs soundedwonderful. He said it took him a fewminutes to figure out how fast topump the organ so the sound justpoured from the organ. Eddiebrought his cornet with him andgave a great rendition of SilentNight. But when he picked up theantique Wurlitzer accordion andstarted playing polkas a lot of feetstarted tapping right along. He thenmoved on to the square were about 20 people listen-ing to him play and he told theEddie Stevens at the organOASD may build new garageBy Anne SussexThe Ontonagon Area schoolboard met for its regular monthlymeeting on Monday, December , Dean Juntunen called themeeting to order with all memberspresent.

5 A group of high school stu-dents were present to observe the last meeting, MemberBruce Johanson asked for anaccounting on the music/band pro-gram for the school. Music teacher,Ben Mayer sent a written memo thatoutlined how the elementary andjunior/senior high school band andmusic classes are conducted. Mayernoted in his memo that the numberof students in band programs hasalmost doubled. Johanson asked ifthe school was providing instru-ments for students and who was thevendor for any rentals. Johansonalso indicated that he was not happywith the lack of beginning board then agreed toincrease the At Risk services for theJr/Sr High school by one hour perschool session day through the endof the current school year. Superin-tendent Gray Webber indicatedthere was enough money in thebudget and with the high percentageof At Risk students that it would bea good move on the part of theboard.

6 The cost for the extra hourwould be about $3,000 for thesemester. Some criteria that definean At Risk student would be lowMEAP scores, if a student is eligiblefor a free or reduced lunch, and fam-ily marital board then moved on toapprove a second reading of theJr/Sr High Handbook which furtherdefines the meaning of a closedcampus. The board also approved afirst reading of a policy change forstudents who wish to graduate policy would require a studentto be enrolled as a senior and main-tain a full schedule. If a studentwants to graduate in advance oftheir current class, they would haveto petition the board to be advancedto the level of a senior would then be a member of theclass. A student who requests earlygraduation after the start of theschool year would not be consideredas a class member and wouldreceive their diploma through board also approved a virtu-al class access policy.

7 This policyoutlines requirements for a studentto enroll in a virtual class as part oftheir then introduced aRetirement Incentive Plan. Thisplan is a onetime deal outside of theregular contract for teachers whodon t fit parameters of the explained that it would beless costly than a layoff. He said thata maximum of five people wouldStupak coming to OntonagonBy Anne SussexCongressman Bart Stupak soffice has announced that he will bevisiting the Western UP in Januaryto hold town hall will be in Ontonagon on Jan-uary 6, at the Ontonagon Jr/Sr HighSchool. He is scheduled to hold ameeting from 5:30 to 7:00 will also hold meetings onJanuary 5, at Gogebic CommunityCollege and in Houghton on Janu-ary will be an opportunity forMr. Stupak to speak on a variety oftopics from health care to the econ-omy and an opportunity for localresidents to let him know what is ontheir minds.

8 Stupak said in a pressrelease that he looks forward tohaving discussions with residents inIronwood, Ontonagon andHoughton. These town hall meet-ings provide me with valuable feed-back and help to spur dialogue onimportant issues within the FirstDistrict. It will also be an opportunity forlocal residents to speak directly toStupak about their concerns forOntonagon candid interview with Representative LahtiHarold S. Riter, ReportingThe Herald had a surprise visitoron December 21, when 110th Dis-trict State Representative MikeLahti dropped in for a brief chat. Ofcourse, this reporter is always anx-ious to talk with and also to talk atour lawmakers, so Lahti s droppingby was most welcome. He had justarrived home from Lansing on Sat-urday and was taking a quick swingthrough the district to talk to variousorganizations and involved with education,this reporter decided to open up thechat on that subject.

9 Currently, indi-vidual Michigan school districts arebeing asked to sign on to a promo-tion being pushed by the Depart-ment of Education as well as by USSecretary of Education, Arne powers that be in Lans-ing are really pushing this Race tothe Top as a way of getting ahold of$400 million dollars. We asked about his feelings on this mat-ter. It s a red herring that will leadto bringing in more charterschools, replied Lahti. Heexplained that the Race to the Top funds are meant to shore up failingschools, or to replace them, ..andwe don t have any failing schools uphere, he continued, suggesting thatjumping through a number of hoopsand amending State school laws justto get the federal money didn tpromise that any of it would reachthe schools in this for the Michigan schoolfunding crisis, Lahti said, We haveto make cuts or raise taxes.

10 Resolu-tions don t solve problems. Talkingabout something else (such as Raceto the Top keeps us from facing theState Representative Mike LahtiTraxys considers expandingrenewable power businessThe 40-megawatt plant in White Pine will be converted from coal tobiomass using the existing infrastructure. The engineering prefeasibili-ty study is underway and environmental permitting will be submittedin early January is a global raw materialmarketing and sourcing firm spe-cializing in base metals and concen-trates, minor and alloying metals,industrial minerals and chemicals,materials for steel mills andfoundries, and carbon products. Itholds investments in various miningoperations around the world andoperates both coal handling facili-ties and power generation assets inthe The company has 21offices worldwide and in 2008 post-ed revenue of $ Traxys Power Division islocated in the Upper Peninsula ofMichigan.)