February 2023

Building on a Legacy Martha Todd leads Kalsec with a purpose

Brass Band of Battle Creek

'Lost' Houses of Kalamazoo Meet John Beebe Concert

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From the Editor

One of the most enjoyable aspects of working at Encore is that you learn a lot about the community — present and past — and the interesting people who have built their lives and livelihoods here.

Our cover story this month is on one of the legacy companies of Kalamazoo: Kalamazoo Spice Extraction Co., or Kalsec, and its board chair, Martha Todd. Martha is the third generation of her family to lead this company, and she isn't comfortable just resting on the laurels of those who came before her. She's brought a lifetime of untraditional experiences — living in a commune, spending years as a youth in Costa Rica, raising two daughters as a single mother — into her work as she has created an on-site preschool and child-care center for employees' children and focused on environmental sustainability in the company's products.

Another part of this issue that has a historic bent is the Five Faves feature by historian Lynn Houghton on “lost” houses of Kalamazoo — beautiful, stately homes that disappeared in the name of progress. It’s interesting to learn whom these homes belonged to and their ultimate destiny, but also sad to know what’s gone.

Also in this issue we learn about the Brass Band of Battle Creek, which has its own fascinating origin story that has led to this band featuring some of the most accomplished brass musicians across the globe. Writer Robert Weir (whom we welcome back to our pages after about a five-year hiatus) finds out how this small-town band is able to attract such luminaries.

Finally, there’s curling. You know you've always wanted to try it, and I did. Our Back Story this month spotlights Kalamazoo Curling Club President John Beebe, who after our interview gave me a lesson in curling. I was awful. But the enthusiasm and passion this club has for the sport is infectious, and I can hear the "rocks" gently calling me, as you might too after reading this story.

Enjoy sitting down with Encore and learning more about your community. And have a loving February!

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FEATURE

Building on a Legacy

Martha Todd’s journey from youthful rebellion to leading Kalsec with purpose

OntheCover: MarthaToddinTheBarnfacility,whichshedesignedand decoratedandwheresheoverseesKalsec'soperations. PhotobyBrianK.Powers

First Things A round–up of happenings in SW Michigan

Five Faves Stately 'lost' houses of Kalamazoo

'Kids helping kids' — Premiere of concerto on homelessness is a collaborative effort

Meet John Beebe — The Kalamazoo Curling Club's leader helps the club rock on

Brass Band of Battle Creek This small-town ensemble attracts world musicians and attention

Zinta Evaluation & Care of Trees and Shrubs

Aistars

Living in a century-old little red farmhouse in the country where she writes and raises chickens, Zinta has long been interested in nurturing a sustainable, organic lifestyle. For this issue she has written the cover story on Martha Todd and the Kalsec company. "I was intrigued to learn about how Kalsec promotes sustainable practices in the food industry," she says. "Their products are derived from natural herbs, spices, vegetables and hops. It was a pleasure to learn how three generations of the Todd family have taken the vision of Paul Todd Jr., who had an idea to use chilis to preserve food, and grown it into an international company working to decrease food waste." Zinta is the creative director of Z Word LLC and the producer and host of the weekly radio show “Art Beat,” on WMUK (102.1 FM).

For her first published piece in our magazine, Encore intern Kalloli reported on the upcoming Paths to Dignity concert to raise awareness of homelessness. "Because three entities — the Stulberg International String Competition, the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra and the Community Healing Centers — are collaborating on this event, I learned about three organizations I hadn't known much about," she says. Kalloli is a Western Michigan University student majoring in journalism.

Weir

“What a joy to write for Encore again, especially to write about the totally awesome Brass Band of Battle Creek,” says Robert, a longtime Encore contributor whose writing returns to our pages this month. Since April 2019, Weir has been traveling the country in an RV and has not submitted an article to Encore since 2018. “Returning to Southwest Michigan and reconnecting simply feels good,” he says. “The Brass Band’s Holiday Concert, performed by world-class musicians, in December was a treat. So was getting to know the people behind the music and their community-oriented music education program. The band’s upcoming concert in May, which will feature New Orleans traditional jazz, combines the best of both worlds: a touch of American travel right here at home.”

Robert

First Things

Something Funny 'Weird Al' on Ill-Advised Vanity Tour

Expect the unexpected when comedy singer “Weird Al” Yankovic plays the Kalamazoo State Theatre at 8 p.m. Feb. 2.

Yankovic’s tour, titled The Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, promises a different set list for every performance. Yankovic will not be performing his hits but instead focusing on songs that evaded the pop-culture spotlight.

Opening the show will be comedian Emo Philips, whose career highlights include the acclaimed comedy album, E=MO Squared, and an hour-long HBO special, Emo Philips Live

Tickets for the five-time Grammy Award-winning Yankovic are $52.50–$122.50 and available at kazoostate.com and at the box office.

Something Gutsy Peking Acrobats coming to Miller

The Peking Acrobats, who push the limits of human ability, will perform at Miller Auditorium at 3 p.m. Feb. 19.

For the past 32 years, these acrobats have performed maneuvers atop a pagoda of chairs, shown technical prowess by trick cycling, precision tumbling, juggling, somersaulting and gymnastics, and provided displays of contortion, flexibility and control. They are accompanied by live musicians playing Chinese music.

Tickets for this event are $30–$40 and are available at millerauditorium.com

Something Indie Grammy nominee Isakov coming to State

Horticulturist-turned-musician Gregory Alan Isakov and his band will perform at the Kalamazoo State Theatre at 8 p.m. Feb. 1.

Building a massive presence in the indie-rock and folk music scene, Isakov has released five full-length studio albums. One of them, Evening Machines, was nominated in 2019 for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album. In addition to touring internationally, Isakov has performed with several symphony orchestras across the country, has his own independent record label and runs a small farm in Boulder, Colorado.

Tickets for the local show are $41–$51 and are available at kazoostate.com or at the box office.

Something Artsy

Garage Sale Art Fair offers bargains

The annual event that bills itself as "an art fair with garage sale prices” returns Feb. 25 to the Kalamazoo County Expo Center, 2900 Lake St.

The Garage Fair Art Sale will feature more than 140 local and other artists selling their overstocks, seconds and supplies from 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Admission is $5, and coat check and package check will be available.

For information on the participating artists, visit garagesaleartfair.com.

Something Funky

SophistaFunk to play Bell's Backroom

Promising an "unstoppable funk hip-hop dance party,” Sophistafunk will bring its music to the Bell's Backroom at 7 p.m. Feb. 23.

The Syracuse, New York-based band has been a popular performer at the annual Electric Forest Music Festival in Rothbury, Michigan. It has also been featured on celebrity chef Guy Fieri's TV shows Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives, Guy’s Grocery Games and Guy’s Ultimate Game Night

The Kalamazoo band The Mainstays will open the show. Tickets are $15 and available at etix.com and Bell’s General Store, 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave.

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Five Faves

Stately Kalamazoo homes that have been lost

BY LYNN HOUGHTON

Kalamazoo is known for a lot of things, including a variety of residences found in its neighborhoods, some of which are designated historic districts. Many of these homes have been saved and maintained by owners who have been able to take advantage of various programs that have provided support and funding over the past 60 years. Some homes, however, are gone for a number of reasons, including their size, location and/or condition. Here are five of my favorite houses that no longer dot our landscape but still exist in photographs, memories and even street names.

Austin-Chapin House

Northeast corner of Oakland Drive and Austin Street

Severens House

East side of Thompson Street, north of Academy Street

Henry Severens, an attorney and later a judge, hired architect Lemuel D. Grosvenor to design a new house for his family not far from Kalamazoo College. This Second Empire residence, completed in 1871, had a tower topped by a mansard roof, gables, tracery and decorative finials. In July of that year, the Kalamazoo Gazette gave an extensive description of the home, including a list of the five types of wood found inside. In addition, a veranda at the rear provided a wonderful view of the village. The Severens family owned the house until the 1920s, when the Scheid family purchased it. They lived there until 1961, when it came down to make way for Kalamazoo College’s Fine Arts Building.

B

enjamin Austin arrived here at age 14 with his father and later became a successful businessman.

He built a Greek Revival house in 1846, which is still standing in downtown Kalamazoo, at 226 W. Lovell St., and known as the Austin-Sill House. His next residence was this striking Gothic Revival house, which was completed in 1853 and located on the northeast corner of Oakland Drive (originally called Asylum Avenue) and Austin Street. It had gables, arched windows and a commanding view of the village. Lebeus and Sarah Chapin purchased the house in the late 1860s, and during this time the estate became known as Mornington. It was sold to Dr. Charles Fletcher in 1894 for a sanitarium, and fire destroyed the house the next year. On the site today is Walwood Hall, part of Western Michigan University’s campus.

Merrill House

became before it was lost. David Merrill owned four flour mills and invested in real estate. He and his family lived in an earlier house on this location before the completion around 1890 of this Queen Anne, with a side tower, gable roof and decorative front porch. Merrill’s will stipulated that when he and his wife died, the house would become a home for widows of “proven respectability,” who could live there for the rest of their lives after paying a small fee. The Senior Citizens Fund in 1955 completed the east wing of the new Merrill Residence, and the Merrill house came down in 1960 to make way for the west wing. In 2012, the building was sold and converted by the new owners into apartments and is now called Lovell Street Apartments.

Southeast corner of West Lovell Street and South Westnedge Avenue

This house is a favorite because of what it

Lane House

Southwest corner of West Michigan and South Westnedge avenues

"Castle” and “mansion” were two of the favorite words used to describe this Richardsonian Romanesque home completed in 1893 for Moses Henry Lane, one of the owners of the Michigan Buggy Co. The house, made of fieldstone, had a prominent tower and a porte cochere for a vehicle. No description survives of its 17 rooms except for the variety of wood used inside. There was some controversy within the company when Lane took company funds for the construction of the house. The Lanes left the home by 1926, and it became a rooming house, with a gas station and streetcar restaurant in the front and side yards. The home came down in 1936, with much of its material made available for use in other local structures.

Connable House 1422 Prospect Hill

The Henderson Castle was not the only prominent house at the top of Prospect Hill, in the West Main Hill neighborhood. Just to the west of it stood the Connable House, designed by a Chicago architect and completed in 1904 for businessman Alfred Connable, his wife, Frances, and their five children. Facing south towards Grand Avenue, the Georgian Colonial Revival sat on three acres and contained five bedrooms, along with a barn for the family cow, which, along with giving milk, also enjoyed catching tennis balls. In 1956, Kalamazoo College purchased the property for a dorm, which was not built, and the house came down three years later. The carriage house and barn survive and are now a single-family home.

Photos courtesy of WMU Archives and Regional History Collection & the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.

About the Author

Lynn Houghton is the regional history curator of the Western Michigan University Archives and Regional History Collection. She leads the Gazelle Sports Historic Walks, a series of free architectural and historic walks at various locations in Kalamazoo County that happen during summer and fall, and she is the co-author of Kalamazoo Lost and Found, a book on Kalamazoo history and architecture. She also participated in the PBS documentary series,10 That Changed America, about the history of architecture and urban planning. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from WMU and a master’s in library and information science from Wayne State University.

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'Kids Helping Kids'

Premiere of concerto on homelessness is a collaborative effort

BY KALLOLI BHATT

The idea of “kids helping kids” is behind a first-time collaboration between three community organizations that will culminate in the world premiere of a new concerto on homelessness by composer Lucas Richman.

Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity will be premiered by the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra at 4 p.m. Feb. 19 in Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave., and will feature Mitchell Newman, former violinist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The concert is a collaboration of the KJSO, the Stulberg International String Competition, and the Community Healing Centers.

In order to raise awareness in the community about homelessness, the KJSO, which is composed of high-school age students from across the region, will perform both as a large group and in small ensembles in the days preceding the premiere concert. Performances will be at the Community Healing Centers’ various programs, including its Gilmore facility, an addiction treatment and detoxification center; El Niñas, an afterschool program for girls ages 8 through 15; and S.T.R.E.E.T., an after-school program for boys ages 10 through 17.

“This partnership connects two very different things (music and homelessness awareness), but in the end it’s kids helping kids, which is very powerful,” says Megan Yankee, executive director of the Stulberg Competition.

“Bringing in these partners, such as the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra and the Community Healing Centers, is so important because the kids involved will learn about each other and homelessness in this process.”

The Kalamazoo Junior Symphony performing in concert.

The performance will be preceded by a free talk by a therapist. “The therapist will talk about issues in the community surrounding homelessness and addiction,” says Yankee. “Kalamazoo Public Schools has more students who have to face homelessness than anywhere else in Michigan.”

According to the Homeless Shelters Directory, 702 individuals experienced homelessness in Kalamazoo County in 2019. Of these, 76 individuals experienced chronic homelessness, which means they had been out on the streets for a long period of time and likely faced substance addiction or mental illness.

“There are so many good resources but homelessness is such a hard thing to address,” says Yankee. “It just made so much sense bringing this concerto here because this is an issue we are dealing with as a community and trying to find solutions and resources. This way we also raise awareness and address homelessness within the arts community as well.”

The violinist, Newman, a former Stulberg judge, commissioned composer and conductor Richman to compose this piece about homelessness. “Addressing homelessness was Newman’s passion project when he lived in Los Angeles,” says Yankee. “He did a lot of volunteer work, and so he chose this piece to be about homelessness.” Richman's compositions have been performed by more than 200 orchestras across the United States, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops and the symphonies of Detroit, Atlanta, New Jersey and Houston. His recent works have reflected climate change and gun violence and have been recorded by the Pittsburgh Symphony and San Diego Symphony, among others.

Composer and conductor Lucas Richman, left, was commissioned to write Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity by former Stulberg International String Festival judge and violinist Mitchell Newman, above, who will perform the piece with the KJSO.

Being acquainted with Kalamazoo and the Stulberg Competition, Newman told Yankee he wanted Kalamazoo to be the home for this new Richman piece, and Yankee knew which ensemble should premiere it.

“We work very closely with the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra,” says Yankee. “Every year, the (Stulberg) bronze medalist performs with them, so who better to perform this piece as well?”

The Stulberg has a goal of deepening community engagement, and this project fit the bill. Yankee says she approached the Community Healing Centers for its involvement because the center's work is often a first step in stopping homelessness and addiction and providing community resources for adolescents.

“I worked in (the Community Healing Centers’) development department, and they seemed like such a natural fit for this project because they are doing such good in this community for addiction recovery, which is often tied closely to housing insecurity,” says Yankee.

As far as funding for the project, the Stulberg is sponsoring Newman's performance with the KJSO, the small ensembles that will give outreach performances for the Community Healing Centers, and workshops by Richman with young musicians at Crescendo Academy, Suzuki Academy and private studios. The KJSO is providing funding for the music, Newman’s fees and facility rentals. And the Community Healing Centers is coordinating the preconcert talk and will provide tickets for families who are involved with its Gilmore facility.

For members of the general public who want to attend the premiere concert, tickets are $5 for students, $10 for seniors and $15 for adults and are available at kjso.org.

At 14 years old, Martha Todd was not very different from other teens who had been told no by their parents. In her case she was told no to piercing her ears. Then a tingle of rebellion rose in the teen’s blood. She held up the safety pin in her fingers. But, leaning into the mirror, it wasn’t her ear where she took her aim. Instead, she rested the tip of the pin against her right nostril, held her breath, and pushed the pin through.

Now 45, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, Todd smiles at the memory. A tiny diamond stud glints in her right nostril.

“Grandma thought it was cool,” she says. “Grandpa likened it to the nose rings pigs have. And, yes, it did get infected.”

In midlife, a bit of rebellion blends well with tradition and family legacy in Martha Todd. She is the thirdgeneration leader of the family business — Kalamazoo Spice Extraction Co., or Kalsec. In January 2020, she took on the role of board chair, taking a leadership role in a company employing more than 500 people that’s headquartered in Kalamazoo but has additional locations in Texas, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Shanghai, Singapore and, most recently, Mexico.

Today, Todd sits in an office inside what is called The Barn, an 1800s building on the Kalsec campus, at 3715 West Main St., that was at one point indeed a working barn. A place where horses were once stabled is now home to offices that retain the flavor of the past — with wood and stone held over from the building’s previous life. The Barn sits on a small hill overlooking a campus of bright white buildings, each housing a different part of the Kalsec process.

Past and future generations

Todd’s office is filled with photographs of her two daughters, the generation of the future, but also with black-and-white photographs of past generations.

“This one is my grandfather, Paul Todd Jr., when he was 18 years old,” Todd says as she holds up a framed photo. It shows a young, slender man in dungarees, a look of comfortable confidence on his face. “We were very close,” Todd says. “I admired him. He taught me how to drive a tractor, how to fish in the pond. The last time I saw him alive, in 2008, he was 87 and loading firewood into the back of a truck.”

Todd tells how her grandfather founded Kalsec in 1958, based on what he termed his “awesome respect for nature.” Struck by the waste of food not only nationwide, but globally, Paul Todd wondered about the possibilities

Building on a Family

LEGACY LEGACY

Martha Todd’s journey from youthful rebellion to leading Kalsec with purpose

Martha Todd, chairman of Kalsec, with daughter, Esme, outside the company's research center named for her grandfather, Paul Todd Jr., who started the company in 1958.

Brian Powers

of preserving food by natural means, using natural antioxidants as an alternative to synthetic preservatives.

“Grandpa was a visionary,” Martha Todd says, “and a bit of a betting man. He bought two trainloads of chilis in Chicago and experimented with extracts from the chilis while looking for a buyer. He loved his beer too and was also passionate about hops.”

The chilis led to experiments with extractions that add color and spice to food products. Success led to more research, and the new company began a plant-breeding program, became a pioneer in gas-liquid chromatography with spice extraction, and by 1977 had developed a Tetralone hop extract to add a stable bitterness to beer. Next came a rosemary extract that can be used in meats, poultry and fish and Durabrite high-stability colors for natural color stabilization in foods. Duralox oxidation management systems were added in 1994, using natural means to keep food fresh longer.

Kalsec products, Todd explains, are always sourced from raw materials, using natural and sustainable means to keep food looking and tasting good without using chemical additives.

At a time when people are looking for clean foods produced by sustainable means, Kalsec has forged ahead to meet those market demands.

“He (Paul Todd Jr.) was ahead of his time in that way, always looking for ways to improve,” his granddaughter says. “The cleaner, the more transparent, the easier it is to fit into different markets and meet different regulations across the world.

“One of the reasons I decided to be involved in the company was because I wanted to learn more about him,” she says. “He was such a strong personality. I never thought I would run out of time with

him, but when he was gone, I appreciated what he had created and the community he inspired too, with employees who had become like family.”

A non-traditional childhood

Martha Todd’s involvement in the company, however, wasn’t always a given. She admits that when she was young, she swore she would have no part in the family business. The young rebel wanted to find her own path.

Her story begins with a childhood growing up in a commune. When her father, George Todd, returned from military service in Vietnam in the 1970s, he continued his education with classes at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, and “one of them was a class on communal living taught by Steve Louisell,” she says. “There were 15 students in the class, and seven of them, including my dad, committed to starting a commune together on property that my dad owned off Ninth Street. Someone in the group had experience with brass belt buckles, and a few others had worked with leather. They founded the Tech-Ether Guild — a combination of technology and leather — in 1971.”

Initially successful — Tech-Ether belt buckles continue to be a collector’s item to this day — the business began to struggle when commune members differed on the creative direction they wanted it to take. After a move to Lake Street, the business eventually dissolved.

Clockwise from top left: Paul Todd Jr., in the Kalsec lab; Martha Todd and her father, George, in a chili field; Paul Todd Sr. as a young man; men load chilis onto a truck in the early days of the company; Martha Todd with her eldest daughter, Edie.

Martha was five when her family left the commune. Her youth followed a nontraditional path, providing experiences abroad. By fourth grade, she had moved to San Jose, Costa Rica, where she lived with a local family, an experience she had at first resisted but later embraced. She came to realize it had expanded her view of the world while improving her Spanish-language skills. In high school, she attended a boarding school in Carbondale, Colorado, but during her junior year moved back with the family in Costa Rica.

“I helped to homeschool their two youngest children while the father recovered from cataract surgery,” Todd says. “We were living on a vanilla farm in the rainforest and had no electricity — very rustic!”

When she was 16, her father, George, brought her along to a Kalsec board meeting. He hoped to introduce his daughter to the business and perhaps entice her to take a role there as an adult.

“He asked me after the meeting, 'What do you think?'” Todd says, smiling. “I was learning all about the greenhouse effect

at that time in the boarding school in Colorado, so I talked to him about organics. He pshawed that, but today Kalsec is working toward greater sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint in all our practices.

“Some of my best memories are working on the farm crew back when we had fields of peppers growing here,” she says, pointing to land now either covered by Kalsec buildings or lying fallow until conservation efforts begin. “We worked from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., picking rocks, planting, harvesting. I remember riding around in pickup trucks. It was great fun.”

Todd remained in Kalamazoo for her college years and earned a degree in religion from Kalamazoo College in 2000.

“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at that point,” she says. “Part of my family was Catholic and part atheist. I studied science and I studied religion, and I felt like the two could go hand in hand. Kalamazoo College is known for its study-abroad program, and I spent six months in Oaxaca, Mexico, working on a senior individualized project on the influence of Catholicism on the role of the Mexican woman. And I did part of my master’s (degree from Western Michigan University) in Spain. I played with the idea of being a professor of Spanish literature, and I toyed with the idea of pursuing a Ph.D., but I got distracted by romance.”

Todd would later attend Michigan State University to earn an Executive Master of Business Administration degree. “That helped me feel more qualified when I was ready to join the board at Kalsec,” she says.

Strong role models

While Todd pondered a teaching career, family influences swirled around her. Would she consider a career in the family business, after all? Kalsec was tightly woven into the family tapestry. Todd may have rebelled at first, but she easily recalls fond memories tied to the company as it grew.

A house rule at the dinner table was not to talk about three topics — Kalsec, politics, religion. “So you can guess what three things the family talks about over dinner,” Todd says, laughing.

Todd says she was as influenced by the women in the family as by the men, attributing to the women a strong and independent spirit that she says inspired her then and now.

“It’s true that our family history narrative is dominated by strong male figures, going back to my great-grandfather, A.M. Todd, the ‘Peppermint King,’ and up to my dad,” Todd says. (The A.M. Todd Co., in Kalamazoo, produced peppermint oil and other botanical extracts and was sold in 2011 to a Swiss company, which in turn sold it to Chicagobased Archer Daniels Midland Co. in 2014.) “But the women in our family have always been brilliant and strong and ahead of their time as well.

“My grandmother, Ruth Terry Todd, received her M.A. from the University of Chicago and was instrumental in the founding of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Michigan as well as the classics department at Kalamazoo College. She was very active in civic engagement and volunteering.

“My mother, Clare Todd, too, has been very active, volunteering at the Cheff Therapeutic

Riding Center in Augusta over the years, (providing) decades of service on the Texas Township Board of Appeals, and playing for the Kalamazoo Community Orchestra under Barry Ross at K-College for years. Women are too often overlooked in their contributions to our community.”

Another influence on Todd’s future path came when her marriage in 2010 and some years living in Oregon ended in divorce by 2016. She was already keenly aware of the challenges of single motherhood; her eldest

daughter Edie was born in 2002. Her second, Esme Joy, was born in 2012. After the divorce she found herself a single mother once again.

“Esme required care for a rare congenital disease called arthrogryposis,” Todd says. Arthrogryposis is a disorder that affects joint contractures, causing muscle stiffness and muscle weakness.

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Juggling the responsibilities of school, parenting and work, Todd returned to Kalamazoo — and Kalsec — to be closer to her family. She realized that many who worked at the company faced child-care challenges like hers.

“That’s when I started to think about creating the (Farmhouse) Early Learning Center at Kalsec,” Todd says. “I had been reading a book called Family Business: Innovative On-Site Child Care Since 1983, by Malinda Chouinard and Jennifer Ridgeway. It was a book used by the Patagonia company. That book changed my life.”

Todd pulls a large volume of the book from a shelf in her office, one of several copies.

www.kvcc.edu/foundation

“MY ENTIRE EXPERIENCE AT KALAMAZOO VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE HAS BEEN POSITIVE. EVERY

BIT HELPS. THE SCHOLARSHIP IS HELPING ME BUILD A BETTER LIFE FOR MY KIDS.”

childcare facility. Above: A Kalsec employee works in a lab at the company's research facility.

She places the book in front of her on her desk and taps a hand on it. “I read this, and I thought, 'Let’s do this.'”

It was 2016, just after a contentious national election, and Todd not only appreciated, firsthand, the challenges of single parenthood but also worried about equity for women in a changing political atmosphere.

“I wanted to do something for the women working at Kalsec,” she says. “I’m hyperfocused on that still. I wanted to show support for all families, anyone caring for children. In 2017, we opened the Early Learning Center on our campus for children from 6 weeks (old) to 6 years (old). Leslie Poucher and Laura Keiser were the two directors who helped me found the Farmhouse and developed its curriculum. Without the two of them, I don’t know if it would have happened.”

The Farmhouse Early Learning Center is in one of the oldest buildings on the Kalsec campus, the original home of Paul and Ruth

Todd and once also Martha Todd’s home. Now it is filled with the chatter of 30 children, and as the need for its services has grown, the center has expanded to its third building, encircling a yard where children play.

“Having the Early Learning Center on site has been a great retention tool for our employees,” Todd says. “And then there are the unintended consequences. We’ve found that community has built around it as parents meet other parents every time they come around for their kids, and the kids have made friends here. Moms and dads can come over and have lunch with their kids and get that extra time with them during their workdays. When the kids parade around the campus, everyone comes rushing to their windows to watch.”

For those whose babies are furry, Kalsec has also added a doggie day-care center. Employees, including Todd, drop off their pets at the center as they head to work.

Once a rebel, Todd has come to embrace her new and expanding role in the family business. She has served on Kalsec's board for 11 years, five as its vice chair, prior to becoming chair. Her mother’s spot on the board has been passed on to her older sister, Sara.

“We now have three women on the board, and that’s something I want to expand on,” Todd says. “I’ve stepped into big shoes here,

Please send your questions to: Michael J. Willis, J.D., C.P.A. Willis Law

491 West South Street Kalamazoo, MI 49007 269.492.1040 www.willis.law

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Left, top and bottom: Employees of the Early Learning Center on the Kalsec campus take children for a stroll and The Farmhouse, once a residence for the Todd family, now houses the company's on-site

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rated as an

-Preeminent

by Martindale-Hubbell. This

according

but now my passion is moving Kalsec in a net positive direction.”

In December 2020, Kalsec earned the honor of being certified as a B Corporation, meaning it was recognized as a business that has met rigorous social and environmental standards representing its commitment to making ethical and sustainable decisions that serve consumers, customers, employees, communities and the environment. Kalsec is one of only 3,500 businesses globally that have earned the certification.

“It’s based on practices at Kalsec since its beginning,” Todd says. “This is how things have been done here since my grandfather started the business. It’s just great to be recognized for that. My focus now, going forward, is to lead the family business through this transition to its third and fourth

generations, (so) that we retain our soul, our family feel, our community, as we continue to grow and expand globally. “

Todd glances again at the framed photo of the company founder.

“My grandpa often talked about Kalsec as providing a platform for people to discover their own passions,” she says. “I feel that is what I strive to do, to continue to ensure that Kalsec remains a place that provides that for our employees while setting new targets and aspirations for a world full of challenges that were incomprehensible even 10 years ago.”

Kalsec’s leadership has identified four pillars of innovation to guide the company

forward — green technology, agritech, biotransformation and the creation of novel new products.

“We continue to strive to remain at the cutting edge of technology, not just in our products but our processes and our business practices,” Todd says.

As to her own role, she pauses to think for a moment, then says, “I used to say I would never work for Kalsec. I thought about what I wanted to do to be happy, but then as I grew older I started thinking more about having a life with meaning and purpose. I have found that here."

For This Exact Moment

Enhanced Psychiatric Urgent Care for Adults.

When life is overwhelming, same-day assessments are available at our Psychiatric Urgent Care Center. Call 616.455.9200 for more info and virtual appointments.

pinerest.org/urgent • 616.455.9200

Above: Kalsec flavorings such as this carmelized onion are used in food production. Right: The Barn is just one of the many buildings on the Kalsec campus on West Main St.

TheArts

Spotlighting greater Kalamazoo's arts community

Exuding Excellence

Brass Band of Battle Creek attracts world-class musicians

by ROBERT WEIR

The band has been called “the RollsRoyce of Brass” by a fan on Facebook and "one of the most accomplished groups I’ve ever worked with” by jazz trumpeter Doc Severinsen and has been said to be "packed with all the best” by the online brass band magazine 4barsrest.com

This ensemble of world-class musicians that gives five-star concerts is none other than the Brass Band of Battle Creek.

Indeed, each concert by the Brass Band of Battle Creek (BBBC) exudes excellence

from first note to last — in tight, dynamic harmonies, in enchanting solos, even in the reflective luster of the musicians’ shiny brass instruments.

The virtuosity that emanates from the stage of the band’s primary performance venue, W.K. Kellogg Auditorium, started, metaphorically, as a simple riff that inspired two men in Marshall to invoke a melody that has since crescendo-ed, accelerando-ed, and legato-ed with skillful tempos, rhythms and harmonies that resonate fortissimo today.

The two men are amateur musicians and brothers: Bill Gray (on trombone) and Jim Gray (on euphonium). These two podiatrists were president and vice president of the Marshall Community Band in the 1980s. Their father (a bass clarinetist) was president of the Michigan State Concert Band, and their mother sang soprano.

In 1985, Leonard Falcone, a pioneer in euphonium artistry and director of bands at Michigan State University from 1927 to 1978, died. His former students, who

were noted musicians and music instructors around the country, organized a euphonium competition in his honor. The first Falcone Festival (now the Leonard Falcone International Tuba and Euphonium Festival) was held in 1986 at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, near Muskegon, and Bill and Jim Gray chauffeured the musicians.

Brothers in brass

Motivated to host their own brass band concert in Marshall in 1990, the brothers called upon the professionals they had met, including Paul Droste, director of the award-winning Brass Band of Columbus (Ohio). “We had top-notch players right out of the box, augmented with many local players,” says Bill.

A year later, the Grays hosted another concert, the first under the new Brass Band of Battle Creek moniker.

Their sister Kathleen sat next to a man to whom she praised the band’s talents prior to the concert. After the concert, she said to him, “I hope we can do this again.” The man replied, “I’m pretty sure you will.” That man was Russell Mawby, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which soon thereafter funded the band.

From then to the mid-’90s, the BBBC’s growth was legato and allegro. “We got very, very good very, very fast,” recalls Jim.

Bill adds, “We knew the top players — Doc Severinsen, Wynton Marsalis, leads on Broadway, players in the armed-service bands. We had all-stars.”

The same holds true today, as most of the musicians come from afar to perform with the band. “We don’t audition,” says BBBC Executive Director Shannon Aikins. “The musicians in the band have connections. When we have an opening, they recommend someone.”

They come from afar

Key players today include Joseph Alessi, principal trombonist with the New York Philharmonic; Julie Boehler, principal timpanist, retired from the U.S. Army Band; Sean Jones, director of jazz at the Peabody Institute; Richard Kelley, trumpeter with the Boston Pops Orchestra; Jens Lindemann, professor of trumpet at UCLA; Steven Mead, professor of euphonium at Royal Northern College of Music, in Manchester, England.

Three brass players teach in the music department at Michigan State University, and two at Western Michigan University. A few locals occasionally play percussion, keyboard, harp or guitar with the band.

Some BBBC regulars have played with the Empire Brass Quintet, the Canadian Brass Quintet, the San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, L’Orchestre Symponique de Montreal and/or the London Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, at New York City’s Lincoln Center and/or on Broadway.

The musicians in the BBBC number the traditional 29. Their instruments are those whose sound is produced by “buzzing lips” on a mouthpiece such as the cornet, flugelhorn, tenor horn, baritone, trombone, euphonium. No woodwinds nor strings.

Acclaimed as “the hallmark of diversification,” the Brass Band of Battle Creek entertains in a host of genres: classical, Latin, tango, klezmer, big band swing, modern, traditional, medieval, holiday, spirituals, hymns, island music, world music, rock, funk, blues, jazz. You name it, and they play it very, very well.

Plan now to see the Brass Band of Battle Creek

When: 7:30 p.m. May 20 Where: W.K. Kellogg Auditorium, 50 W. Van Buren St., Battle Creek

Featuring:

• New Orleans jazz clarinetist Doreen Ketchens, nicknamed “Lady Louis” in reference to jazz great Louis Armstrong. She plays Dixieland and traditional jazz from the 1930s to the 1960s. She has performed in concert halls and music festivals with the likes of Wynton Marsalis, Trombone Shorty, Al Hirt and others; in U.S. embassies and at the White House for four presidents; and on the streets of the Big Easy’s French Quarter.

• Master jazz trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, director of jazz studies at Augusta University, in Augusta, Georgia, and artist in residence at Arizona State University, acclaimed 15 times as Trombonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.

• Banjoist, composer and educator Don Vappie, “the coolest cat in New Orleans,” who has received awards for preserving New Orleans Creole culture through music and film.

• Master drummer Herlin Riley, who started playing drums in New Orleans when he was 3 and is now a member of Wynton Marsalis’ Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

Tickets: $25–$65. Given the talent of the brass musicians in the band, it should be no surprise that BBBC concerts are almost always sold-out events. Since the May concert will also likely sell out, patrons are encouraged to order tickets now online at bbbc.net.

They mix genres within concerts and do the unexpected. For example, a trombone quartet performed a magnificent arrangement of Tommy Dorsey’s “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” in the 2022 Holiday Concert.

A ‘magical' conductor

The band’s talent is drawn together by resident conductor Michael J. Garasi, who has directed top-flight bands in the United States and England. Aikins describes Garasi's prowess as “magical… He works so well with those giant superstars,” Aikins says.

Garasi is also an accomplished teacher of young musicians, which fits hand in glove with the BBBC's core value of fostering the next generation of musicians. The band holds a five-day Youth Brass Band Camp for high school students and a three-day camp for middle school students each summer. Both camps conclude with a public concert in which the youths play alongside BBBC musicians and local band directors and music instructors.

“The kids come to camp nervous, but that side-by-side experience with the professionals and veteran music educators is powerful. They bond through music and improve quickly,” says the BBBC’s education director, Jerry Rose, who established award-winning band programs at area high schools.

Aikins says the camps “trigger in them (the students) the key for success in life, whether in music or not.”

That the Brass Band of Battle Creek is able to bond with its audiences is due in good measure to Jim Gray, who, along with Garasi, selects and sequences the tunes to be played at each concert.

“The music has to both please the audience and challenge the musicians,” says Jim, who also arranges songs for the BBBC. “Rise and fall. Ebb and flow. Different tempos. Different styles. It’s all very important in the programming.”

Here’s his description of the sequencing at December’s Holiday Concert: “A big cornet fanfare for the national anthem. Then the galloping ‘William Tell Overture’— you can’t lose with that. Then a nice slow piece” — “Hymn to Freedom,” performed as a sweet, improvised cornet duet by Sean Jones and Jens Lindemann.

Battle Creek’s own Doug LaBrecque, a vocalist extraordinaire who has performed lead roles on Broadway in Phantom of the Opera, Showboat and other productions, wowed the audience with novel and traditional holiday songs. They ‘know what great is’

Because most of the band members come from afar, they arrive in Battle Creek on a Wednesday, rehearse on Thursday and Friday morning, perform on Saturday night and fly back to their respective homes on Sunday. Plus, on Friday night, a few musicians form combos and improvise in Battle Creek’s downtown pubs.

That ad hoc coming together alone speaks volumes about the caliber of these musicians who elicit spontaneous, uproarious standing ovations. “They feed a common energy and play together for the common good,” Aikins says.

“The musicians in the band know what great is, and they do great,” says Jim Gray. “We, as an organization, just work to uphold that standard.”

Bill Gray concludes, “People won’t remember who Jim and I are, but people know the band is a part of Battle Creek. That’s what’s important.”

TheArts

Museum:Conversationsin theGallery

Feb. 17–26

WMU Theatre

You'll never know who you are talking or listening to in this immersive theater production in the Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Western Michigan University's fine arts gallery space.

In this unique WMU production, the audience will have a chance to enjoy the art, meet an array of characters and hear their stories as they move throughout the gallery. Perhaps the people next to the audience members are actors, perhaps just guests.

Show times are 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17–18 & 24–25 and 1 and 4 p.m. Feb. 19 & 26. Tickets are $6–$21 and available by calling 387-6222 or visiting wmich.edu/theatre.

FirstDate:Musical

Feb. 10–19

The Civic

What seems like certain disaster — blind date newbie Aaron is set up with serial dater Casey — turns into a musical journey in this production at the Kalamazoo Civic's Parish Theatre.

Jordan Bruner and Nadya Beyar (in her Civic debut) are the hapless couple whose inner critics take on a life of their own when other restaurant patrons transform into supportive best friends, manipulative exes and protective parents who sing and dance them through icebreakers, appetizers and conversational land mines.

The show contains adult content and language. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10, 11, 17 & 18 and 2 p.m. Feb. 12 & 19 at the Parish, 405 W. Lovell St. Tickets are $17–$30 and available by calling 343-1313 or visiting kazoocivic.com.

CaughtUpintheCircleofLife

Feb. 18

All Ears Theatre

This all-audio theater production looks at how our lives intertwine with others and how what we seek is sometimes not what really is.

TheMountaintop Feb. 23–26

Kalamazoo College Festival Playhouse

THEATER

This fictional depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last night on earth set entirely in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel on the eve of his assassination in 1968 will be staged by Kalamazoo College. Written by American playwright Katori Hall, the production will be directed by Quincy Thomas.

Show times are 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23–25 and 2 p.m. Feb. 26 at Kalamazoo College's Nelda K. Balch Playhouse, 129 Thompson St. Tickets are $10–$25 and are available online at festivalplayhouse. kzoo.edu or calling 337-7333.

Something Rotten!

Feb. 24–26

Center Stage Theatre

How do two brothers running a theatrical troupe in 1595 cope with being outshone at every turn by none other than William Shakespeare? That's the tale at the heart of this musical comedy.

The show is directed by Douglas Gaertner, with Jack FordTeich and Drew Dixon as Nick and Nigel Bottom, respectively. It will be performed at Comstock Community Auditorium, 2107 N. 26th St.

Show times are 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24 & 25 and 2 p.m. Feb. 25 & 26. Tickets are $12–$15 and available at kzoocst.com.

Ongoing Productions

Dontrell,WhoKissed

Williams Theatre, WMU

The script is by local playwright Buddy Hannah, and the show is directed by Marissa Danielle Harrington.

Show time is 6 p.m. at the Kalamazoo Nonprofit Advocacy Building/First Baptist Church, 315 W. Michigan Ave.

TheGreatLeap Feb. 2–12

Farmers Alley Theatre

ClybournePark Feb. 3–5

Civic Theatre

Author Hop

Feb. 10

Portage District Library

Meet more than 20 local authors whose work ranges from nonfiction to children's books to fiction and mystery at this event, running from 5–8 p.m.

It will include the opportunity to purchase signed copies of the authors' books, a prize drawing, live jazz and refreshments. Among the participating writers are two Encore contributors, Robert Weir and Heidi McCrary.

For more information, visit portagelibrary.info.

DANCE

WinterGalaDance Concert

Feb. 10–11

WMU Department of Dance

The Western Michigan University Department of Dance will present its annual student and faculty dance showcase in WMU’s Shaw Theatre.

Students will perform dances by Great Works artist Decidedly Jazz Danceworks and other guest choreographers in styles including ballet, jazz, modern and contemporary dance. The Winter Gala Dance Concert will also feature choreography by dance faculty and students.

Show times are 8 p.m. Feb. 10 & 11 and 2 p.m. Feb. 11 & 12, and tickets are $6–$21. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit wmich.edu/dance/events.

LITERATURE

Poets in Print: Layli Long Soldier & Chet’la Sebree

Feb. 18 Online

Two award-winning poets will read from their works in this 7 p.m. virtual event via Zoom.

Chet’la Sebree is the author of Field Study, winner of the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Mistress, winner of the 2018 New Issues Prize and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Her poetry and prose have been published in journals and magazines including The Yale Review, The New Republic, Kenyon Review, and Guernica

She is an assistant professor of English at The George Washington University and is working on her debut essay collection.

Layli Long Soldier is the author of WHEREAS, which won the 2018 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and was short-listed for the National Book Award. She has received a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, and a Whiting Writers’ Award. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

For a link to the reading, visit kalbookarts.org.

Author TJ Klune

Feb. 21

Communiteen Read 2023

This award-winning author, whose novel The House in the Cerulean Sea was this year's Portage Communiteen Read selection, will discuss his book at 6 p.m. at the Portage Zhang Senior Center, 203 E. Centre Ave. The book won an Alex Award in 2021 from the American Library Association. These awards are given annually to 10 books written for adults that have special appeal to young people ages 12 to 18.

Communiteen Read, a program co-hosted by Portage Public Schools, Portage District Library, and This is a Bookstore/Bookbug, has Portage teens read and discuss a selected book and culminates in a visit from the author.

Klune is a prolific writer whose novels also include Into This River I Drown, winner of a Lambda Literary Award. In addition to stand-alone novels, he has written books in a number of series.

His Feb. 21 presentation is free and open to the public. For more information, visit communiteenreadportage.com/2023.

TIME TESTED. TENACIOUS. TRUSTED.

James R. Shinar

F: (269) 323-3418 8051 Moorsbridge Rd. Portage jim@shinarlaw.com www.shinarlaw.com

T: (269) 329-4625

Layli Long Soldier Chet'la Sebree

TheArts

Clayton Stephenson

Feb. 5

Gilmore Rising Stars Series

While in-person tickets for pianist Clayton Stephenson's performance have already sold out, you can still see it virtually.

Stephenson, the 2022 Gilmore Young Artist and a finalist at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will perform at 5 p.m. in the Wellspring Theater, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall.

He has performed at BeethovenFest in Bonn, Germany, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in economics at Harvard and a master’s degree in piano performance at the New England Conservatory.

His concert program includes works by Bach, Gershwin, Beethoven, Tatum, Scriabin and Prokofiev. Tickets for a livestream of his performance are available on a name-your-price basis at thegilmore.org.

Bronzefest

Feb. 19

Kalamazoo Ringers

Six handbell choirs will join as one to play in this annual concert celebrating the art form of handbell ringing.

This free concert will begin at 3:30 p.m. at Portage West Middle School, 7145 Moorsbridge Road. It will be directed by Fred Gramann, an internationally renowned handbell clinician, director and composer. For more information, visit kalamazooringers.org.

FascinatingRhythmwithMegan

Dooley

Feb. 25

Kalamazoo Concert Band

Kalamazoo vocalist Megan Dooley will once again join the Kalamazoo Concert Band for a night of music and song at 7:30 p.m. in Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave.

Dooley, who last performed with the band singing World War II era songs in the 2020 show The Homefront, will lend her vocal talents to this concert, which explores the rhythms that surround us.

The concert is free. For more information, visit kalamazooconcertband.org.

Various Performances

Throughout the month WMU School of Music

WMU's School of Music is only a month into the new semester but has a full slate of concerts scheduled for February. Unless noted, performances will be in the university's Dalton Center Recital Hall and are free. The performances scheduled are:

• Western Winds, made up of WMU graduate students and faculty mentors, in WMU’s Bullock Series, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 1 with pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5–$15.

• University Jazz Orchestra and University Jazz Lab Band, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2. Tickets are $5–$10.

• University Symphony Orchestra, with pianist Yu-Lien The, 3 p.m. Feb. 5 at Miller Auditorium.

• University Wind Symphony and Concert Band, conducted by Scott Boerma and Mary Land, 3 p.m. Feb. 12 at Miller Auditorium.

• University Symphonic Band, conducted by Trey Harris, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13, Miller Auditorium.

• Pianist Jasmin Arakawa, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 16.

• Composer and WMU faculty member Christopher Biggs and saxophonist Ben Schmidt-Swartz, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19.

• Vocalist Greg Jasperse and Grammy-nominated guitarist Chico Pinheiro in WMU’s Bullock Series, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 22, with pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5–$15.

• Amphion, Anima and University Chorale, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25.

• Student Composers recital, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit wmich.edu/ music/events.

JurassicParkin Concert Feb. 24

Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra

Steven Speilberg’s iconic 1993 science fiction film about man against prehistoric predators will be shown as the symphony orchestra performs John Williams’ iconic score to the film.

The event begins at 7 p.m. at Miller Auditorium. Tickets are $6–$68 and are available at kalamazoosymphony.com.

PathstoDignity

Feb. 19

Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra

See story on page 11.

Jasmin Arakawa

AllTogetherNow: ContemporaryPrints fromtheUniversityArt Collection

Through Feb. 25

Richmond Center for Visual Arts

Nearly 100 works representing the wide-ranging history of printmaking and taken from the Western Michigan University Art Collection are featured through Feb. 25 in the Albertine Monroe-Brown Gallery of WMU’s Richmond Center for Visual Arts.

This exhibition includes dozens of post-modern and contemporary artists, including Joseph Albers, Laylah Ali, Sol Lewitt, Lorna Marsh, Jaune Quick-toSee Smith, Do Ho Suh, Roger Shimomura and Cy Twombly.

Gallery hours are noon–5 p.m. Wednesday–Friday and noon–4 p.m. Saturday. For more information, visit wmich.edu/art.

GingerOwen-Murakami: Girl’sOwnGuide

Through Feb. 25

Richmond Center for Visual Arts

Wet-plate collodion photographic images inspired by the woman recognized as America's first published abolitionist writer, Lydia Maria Child, will be featured in this exhibition by Ginger Owen-Murakami in the Rose Netzorg and James Wilfrid Kerr Gallery.

Child, a women's rights activist, opponent of American expansionism, activist for the rights of indigenous people, novelist and journalist, published The Girl’s Own Book in 1834.

Owen-Murakami is a professor of photography at Western Michigan University's Gwen Frostic School of Art, whose artwork derives imagery from narratives and themes of family history, race, gender and culture.

For more information, visit wmich.edu/art.

TheIllustratedAccordion

VISUAL ARTS

MichiganMementos:A PainterlyCollectionof MemoriesandPlaces Through

Feb. 28 Portage District Library

A collection of paintings by Kalamazoo artist Anna Barnhart that give a snapshot of some of Michigan’s well-known places will be on display in the library's Atrium Gallery.

Barnhart, whose style ranges from vividly impressionistic to nearly abstract, captures the landscapes and moods of the Midwest.

Gallery hours are 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Monday–Thursday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturday. For more information, visit portagelibrary.info.

FILM

Local Filmmaker Showcase

Feb.

23 Kalamazoo Film Society

Works by local filmmakers will hit the silver screen in this inaugural event presented by the Kalamazoo Film Society.

It runs from 7–9 p.m. at Celebration Cinema, 6600 Ring Road. After the screenings, filmmakers in attendance will participate in a question-and-answer session.

24 Kalamazoo Book Arts Center

Feb. 3–March

Books created in the accordion style by emerging and established artists will be featured in this annual exhibition, with a reception for the artists set for 5–8 p.m. March 3.

Accordion books are composed of a continuous folded sheet of paper that can be stood up to view all the pages at once. They had origins throughout Asia and were created to accommodate scroll-style books.

The KBAC is at 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave., Suite 103A. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday–Friday or by appointment. For more information, call 373-4938 or visit kalbookarts.org.

The free event is designed to encourage and celebrate local filmmakers. The showcase began taking submissions in October, and those whose works were chosen for screening were notified in January.

For more information, visit kalfilmsociety.net.

TheArts

is published in partnership and funding provided by

Laylah Ali, Untitled (2001)

PERFORMING ARTS THEATER Plays

Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea — Eighteen-year-old Dontrell Jones III decides it’s his destiny to venture into the Atlantic Ocean in search of an ancestor lost during the Middle Passage, presented by WMU Theatre and Face Off Theatre, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2–4, 2 p.m. Feb. 5, Williams Theatre, WMU, 387-6222, wmich.edu/ theatre.

TheGreatLeap— When an American college basketball team travels to Beijing for a “friendship” game in the post-Cultural Revolution in the 1980s, both countries try to tease out the politics, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2–4 &. 9–11, 2 p.m. Feb. 5 & 12, Farmers Alley Theatre, 221 Farmers Alley, 343–2727, farmersalleytheatre.com.

Clybourne Park — In this sequel to A Raisin in the Sun, a home in a predominantly Black neighborhood holds its ground in the face of gentrification, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3–4, 2 p.m. Feb. 5, Civic Theatre, 329 S. Park St., 343–1313, kazoocivic.com.

Museum: Conversations in the Gallery — WMU Theatre presents an immersive theatrical experience with actors placed throughout the art gallery, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17–18 & 24–25, 1 p.m. Feb. 19 & 26, 4 p.m. Feb. 19 & 26, Richmond Center for Visual Arts, WMU, 387-6222, wmich.edu/theatre.

Harlem Duet — With characters inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, this play moves through time to show a couple being torn apart in three time periods, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23–25, 2 p.m. Feb. 26, Kalamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse, 129 Thompson St., festivalplayouse.kzoo.edu.

Musicals

First Date: Musical — When blind-date newbie Aaron is set up with serial dater Casey, a casual drink at a busy New York restaurant turns into a high-stakes dinner, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10–11 & 17–18, 2 p.m. Feb. 12 & 19, Parish Theatre, 405 W. Lovell St., 343–1313, kazoocivic.com.

Cats — This musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber tells the story of one magical night when a tribe of cats gather for an annual ball, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17, 2 & 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387–2300, millerauditorium.com.

Something Rotten! — In 1595 London, the Bottom brothers try to find success by writing plays but are outshined by rock-star playwright William Shakespeare, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24 & 25, 2 p.m. Feb. 25 & 26, Center Stage Theatre, Comstock Community Auditorium, 2107 N. 26th St., kzoocst.com.

Other

LambofGod— A musical retelling of the final days of the life of Jesus Christ, his atonement and resurrection through the eyes of those who loved him and knew him best, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387–2300, millerauditorium.com.

Caught Up in the Circle of Life — An all-audio theater production by local playwright Buddy Hannah looking at how our lives intertwine with others and how what we seek is sometimes not what really is, 6 p.m. Feb. 18, Kalamazoo Nonprofit Advocacy Coalition, 315 W. Michigan, allearstheatre.org.

The Peking Acrobats — Chinese acrobats perform maneuvers in trick cycling, precision tumbling, juggling, somersaulting and gymnastics, 3 p.m. Feb. 19, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387–2300.

DANCE

WinterGalaDanceConcert— Presented by Western Michigan University Department of Dance, 8 p.m. Feb. 10–11, 2 p.m. Feb. 11–12, Shaw Theatre, WMU, wmich. edu/dance/events.

WMU Student Dance Concert— 8 p.m. Feb. 24 and 2 & 8 p.m. Feb. 25, Studio B, Dalton Center, WMU, wmich.edu/dance/events.

MUSIC

Bands & Solo Artists

Gun Lake Live Winter Sounds — Indoor concerts on Wednesday nights: Michele Moretti, Feb. 1; Larry Lowis, Feb. 8; John Sanger, Feb. 15; Steffan Copenhaver, Feb. 22; all shows 5–9 p.m., Bay Pointe Inn, 11456 Marsh Road, Shelbyville, 888–486–5253.

Gregory Alan Isakov — Horticulturist-turnedmusician performs indie-rock and folk songs, 7 p.m. Feb. 1, State Theatre, 404 S. Burdick St., kazoostate.com.

Bell’s Eccentric Cafe Concerts —Thunderstruck, Feb. 3; Crys Matthews, Feb. 15; Gaelic Storm, Feb. 22; Sophistafunk w/The Mainstays, Feb. 23; The Black Opry, March 1; all shows begin at 8 p.m., 355 E. Kalamazoo Ave., 382–2332, bellsbeer.com.

Rockzilla Tour — Papa Roach and Falling in Reverse rock bands perform, 6 p.m. Feb. 14, Wings Event Center, 3600 Vanrick Drive, wingseventcenter.com/ Events.

Tab Benoit — Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and guitarist performs soulful blues, 8 p.m. Feb. 23, State Theatre, kazoostate.com. Orchestra, Chamber, Jazz, Vocal & More

Western Winds — 7:30 p.m. Feb. 1, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, with pre-concert talk at 7 p.m., wmich.edu/music/events.

University Jazz Orchestra and University Jazz Lab Band — 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, wmich.edu/music/events..

University Symphony Orchestra — With pianist YuLien The performing, 3 p.m. Feb. 5, Miller Auditorium, wmich.edu/music/events.

Clayton Stephenson — Pianist performing a variety of works from Bach, Beethoven and Gershwin as part of the Gilmore Rising Stars Series, 4 p.m. Feb. 5, Wellspring Theater, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall, with virtual tickets also available, 342–1166, thegilmore.org.

Mall City Harmonizers – Barbershop harmonies, 2 p.m. Feb. 12, Parchment Community Library, 401 S. Riverview Drive, 343-7747, parchmentlibrary.org.

University Wind Symphony and Concert Band — 3 p.m. Feb. 12, Miller Auditorium, wmich.edu/music/ events.

University Symphonic Band — 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13, Miller Auditorium, wmich.edu/music/events.

WMU Guest Artist Recital — Pianist Jasmin Arakawa, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 16, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, wmich.edu/music/events.

Kalamazoo Youth Jazz Orchestra — Musicians ages 12–18 play a selection of music to honor Black History and Women’s History months, 3–4:30 p.m. Feb. 18, Portage District Library, 300 Library Lane, 329-4544, portagelibrary.info.

Bronzefest — Six handbell choirs join as one, 3:30–5 p.m. Feb. 19, Portage West Middle School, 7145 Moorsbridge Road, kalamazooringers.org.

Concerto for Violin: Paths to Dignity — Premiere of Lucas Richman's concerto performed by the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra and violinist Mitchell Newman, 4 p.m. Feb. 19, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave., 349–7557, kjso.org.

Faculty and Guest Recital — Composer Chris Biggs and saxophonist Ben Schmidt-Swartz, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19, Dalton Center Recital Hall, wmich.edu/music/ events.

Vocalist Greg Jasperse and Guitarist Chico Pinheiro — 7:30 p.m. Feb. 22, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, with pre-concert talk at 7 p.m., wmich.edu/ music/events.

Jurassic Park in Concert — The KSO performs along with HD projection of the movie, 7 p.m. Feb. 24, Miller Auditorium, kalamazoosymphony.org.

Fascinating Rhythm with Megan Dooley — The Kalamazoo vocalist performs with the Kalamazoo Concert Band, 7:30–9 p.m. Feb. 25, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave., kalamazooconcertband.org.

Choral Showcase — Featuring WMU’s Amphion, Anima and University Chorale, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, wmich.edu/music/ events.

Voctave — High-energy a cappella team performing harmonies from Disney shows, 3 p.m. Feb. 26, Miller Auditorium, WMU, 387–2300.

Student Recital — Featuring student composers, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU, wmich. edu/music/events.

COMEDY

‘Weird Al’ Yankovic — Performs in his Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, 8 p.m. Feb. 2, State Theatre, 404 S. Burdick St., kazoostate.com.

FILM

Local Filmmaker Showcase — Presented by the Kalamazoo Film Society, 7–9 p.m. Feb. 23, Celebration Cinema, 6600 Ring Road, Portage, kalfilmsociety.net.

VISUAL ARTS

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts

314 S. Park St., 349-7775, kiarts.org

Exhibitions

WhatIsGoingOninThisPicture?— Explores Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) to analyze artworks, stories, billboards and more, through April 1.

Art,MusicandFeminisminthe1950s— Featuring women artists during a complicated period of change for women, through May 7.

Expressions in Paper and Clay — Vibrant and innovative traditions of Japanese printmaking and ceramics spanning the past 50 years, through May 14.

Richmond Center for Visual Arts Western Michigan University, 387-2436, wmich.edu/art

AllTogetherNow:ContemporaryPrintsfromthe University Art Collection — More than 100 works by post-modern and contemporary artists, through Feb. 25.

Ginger Owen-Murakami: Girl’s Own Guide — Wet-plate collodion images inspired by The Girl’s Own Book (published 1834), by Lydia Maria Child, through Feb. 25.

Other Venues

Michigan Mementos — A collection of paintings by Kalamazoo artist Anna Burnhart, through Feb. 28, Portage District Library, 300 Library Lane, 329-4544, portagelibrary.info.

The Illustrated Accordion — A non-juried exhibition of accordion-style books by emerging and established artists, Feb. 3–March 24, with reception 5-8 p.m. March 3, Kalamazoo Book Arts Center, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave., Suite 103A, 373-4938, kalbookarts.org.

LIBRARY & LITERARY EVENTS

Comstock Township Library 6130 King Highway, 345-0136, comstocklibrary.org

Adult Book Club — Discussion of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age, by Kevin Boyle, 5:30–7 p.m. Feb. 27; registration required.

Kalamazoo Public Library 553-7800, kpl.gov

Eastwood’s Eastside 113th Anniversary Celebration — Celebrate the anniversary with music, refreshments, crafts and guest speakers, 5–7 p.m. Feb. 3, Eastwood Branch, 1112 Gayle Ave.

Black History Month Bingo — Join Chiante’ Lymon from the Society for History and Racial Equity (SHARE) for an educational evening celebrating the community’s African American heritage, 6–7:30 p.m. Feb. 6, Eastwood Branch; 6–7:30 p.m. Feb. 21; Oshtemo Branch, 6275 W. Main St.; registration required.

Page Turners Book Club — Hybrid discussion of Ducks, by Kate Beaton, 6:30–7:30 p.m. Feb. 6 at Oshtemo Branch and on Zoom; registration required.

Winter Adult Reading Challenge Great Books Discussion — Share a book title, listen to what others are reading or pick up ideas for the Spring Adult Reading Challenge, with refreshments and prizes provided, 6–8 p.m. Feb. 8, Washington Square Branch, 1244 Portage St.

Author Talk: Lana Harper — Online discussion of Back in a Spell, Harper’s third novel in The Witches of Thistle Grove series, 7–8 p.m. Feb. 9, kpl.gov/live.

Music and Memories — Songs geared toward older adults and discussion about how music moves us and brings up memories and stories, with refreshments and coffee, 10:45 a.m. Feb. 13, Oshtemo Branch.

Coffee Talk — Watch a short talk on a large screen and engage in a discussion while drinking coffee, 10:30–11:30 a.m. Feb. 15, Oshtemo Branch; topic to be determined.

Mobile Library — 10–11:30 a.m. Feb. 15 & 1:30–3 p.m. Feb. 27, Texas Township Hall, 7110 West Q Ave.; 11 a.m.–noon Feb. 16, Ecumenical Senior Center, 702 N. Burdick St.; 4–5:30 p.m. Feb. 21, Northside Association for Community Development, 612 N. Park St.

Author Talk: Grace M. Cho — Online discussion of her book Tastes Like War, 1–2 p.m. Feb. 16, kpl.gov/live.

Classics Revisited — Discussion of Selected Poems, by Gwendolyn Brooks, 2:30–4:30 p.m. Feb. 16, Central Library, 315 S. Rose St.; registration required.

Dungeons and Dragons Community Dungeon Master Event — Play D&D with other adults, 6–8 p.m. Feb. 16, Central Library; registration required.

Author Talk: Cassandra Clare — Online discussion of her book The Last Hours: Chain of Thorns, 8–9 p.m. Feb. 28, kpl.gov/live.

Parchment Community Library 401 S. Riverview Drive, 343-7747, parchmentlibrary.org

Mall City Harmonizers — 2 p.m. Feb. 12 (see MUSIC listings).

Parchment Book Group – Discussion of Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi, 6 p.m. Feb 13.

Adult Painting Event – Create a chickadee painting with Coleen Austin, 6 p.m. Feb. 16 or 23; limited seating, reservation required.

Mystery Book Club: Louise Penny Series –Discussion of The Cruelest Month, by Louise Penny, 6:30 p.m. Feb 21.

Portage District Library 300 Library Lane, 329-4544, portagelibrary.info

Muffins and the Market — Librarian Warren Fritz discusses recent stock market trends, 9 a.m. Feb. 2 & 16.

Test of Time: Gadgets Edition — Test your knowledge and compete against the clock or family members on inventions from the brick phone, eighttrack tape, pager and other gadgets on display, 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Feb. 4.

International Mystery Book Club — Discussion of Velvet Was the Night, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 7 p.m. Feb. 7.

Documentary and Donuts — Viewing of the film Twenty Pearls: The Story of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., 10 a.m.–noon Feb. 10.

Author Hop — Meet more than 20 local authors and explore their books for sale, with prize drawing, live jazz and refreshments provided, 5–8 p.m. Feb. 10.

Plots and Pages: A Local Writers Group — Author Mark Love discusses the craft of writing, 6:30 p.m. Feb. 13.

Speculative Fiction Discussion: Upcoming Fiction Books for 2023 — A librarian reveals the upcoming books to fill out your “must read” list, 7 p.m. Feb. 14.

Cookies and Conversation: Heartwarming Reads Book Club — Discussion of The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune, 2 p.m. Feb. 15.

How to Write a Novel — Led by author Mark Love, 6:30–7:30 p.m. Feb. 15.

Yoga and Journaling — Instructor Susan Corak combines slow-flow yoga with journaling for selfexploration, 1:30 p.m. Feb. 17.

Kalamazoo Macintosh Users Group — Meeting about using and providing help with Macintosh programs and accessories, 9 a.m.–noon Feb. 18.

Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society — Open to anyone interested in genealogy, 6:30–8:30 p.m. Feb. 20; in person and online.

Family Fun: Polar Bear Games — Indoor fun for the entire family, with mitten challenges, marshmallow snowmen, “snowball” fight and “ice fishing,” 6–7 p.m. Feb. 23.

Richland Community Library 8951 Park St., 629-9085, richlandlibrary.org

Bridge Club — Noon–3 p.m. Tuesdays.

Classics Film Club — Discussion of The Defiant Ones, 7 p.m. Feb. 9.

Richland Area Writer’s Group — Open to new members, 10–11:30 a.m. Feb. 11 & 25, in person and via Zoom.

Team Game Night — Teams of two to four people play Family Feud, 6 p.m. Feb. 14; registration required.

Richland Genealogy Group — Roundtable discussion group, 10–11:30 a.m. Feb 16, in person and via Zoom.

Books with Friends Book Club — Discussion of The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett, 7 p.m. Feb. 16.

Team Trivia — Teams of two to six people test their knowledge on a variety of topics, 7 p.m. Feb. 23; registration required.

Annual Art & Writing Contest Open Submissions — Accepting submissions from all ages within the community and displaying them for judging by popular vote; submissions accepted March 1–31.

Other Venues

Poets in Print — Layli Long Soldier and Chet’la Sebree read from their works via Zoom, 7 p.m. Feb. 18, kalbookarts.org.

MUSEUMS

Gilmore Car Museum 6865 Hickory Road, Hickory Corners, 671-5089, gilmorecarmuseum.org

Daily Docent Tour — Complimentary docent-led museum tours through the galleries, 10:30 a.m. Monday–Friday through March 31.

Behind the Scenes Tour — Enjoy a free guided tour of the museum with exclusive access, 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays, through March 28.

2023 Lecture Series — Seeking the Lord, The Search for the Jarvis Lord Shipwreck, Ross Richardson, Michigan shipwreck historian, Feb. 5; Willow Run Boys Camp to Bomber Plant, Rick Cahow, historian, Feb. 12; Ladies of the Lights, Dianna Stampfler, Promote Michigan founder, Feb. 19; Route 66, John Lacko, photojournalist, Feb. 26; all sessions begin at 2 p.m.

Kalamazoo Valley Museum 230 N. Rose St., 373-7990, kalamazoomuseum.org

A HeLa Story: Mother of Modern Medicine — An exhibit telling the story of Henrietta Lacks, whose unique cells led to medical breakthroughs, through Feb. 27.

Moments in Time: The Kalamazoo County Photo Documentary Project — Documenting life in Kalamazoo since 1984, through June 4.

WonderMedia:AsktheQuestions!— This interactive exhibition tests visitors’ literacy skills and shows how to discern misinformation and disinformation in the media, through 2023.

NATURE

Kalamazoo Nature Center 7000 N. Westnedge Ave., 381-1574, naturecenter.org

Mindfulness Yoga— Enjoy a relaxing session of yoga with meditation and mindfulness experiences, 6–7 p.m. Feb. 8; registration required.

Returning and Reskilling Series — Learn how to use a variety of natural materials to navigate and explore the world around us, 10–11:30 a.m. Feb. 11 & 25, DeLano Homestead, 555 West E Ave.; registration required.

Winter Feeder Counts and Bird-Friendly Coffee — Learn about common birds seen at feeders during the winter, 10–11:30 a.m. Feb. 18; registration required.

Kellogg Bird Sanctuary 12685 East C Ave., Augusta, 671-2510, birdsanctuary@kbs.msu.edu

Birds and Coffee Chat Online — Discussion of gulls spotted in Michigan, 10 a.m. Feb. 8; registration required.

Other Venues

Kalamazoo Astronomical Society Meeting — Speaker Mike Sinclair gives an overview of the foundations of Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, 7–9:15 p.m. Feb. 3, Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center, 600 W. Vine St.; register for in-person or online viewing at kasonline.org.

Winter Snow Party — Sledding, snowman-building contest, bonfire and hot cocoa for purchase, noon–3 p.m. Feb. 4, Oakland Drive Park, 7650 Oakland Drive, portagemi.gov/calendar.

Ranger Hike: Animal Tracks — Join park staff for a wintry hike to locate animal tracks and learn how to identify them, 2 p.m. Feb. 11, West Lake Nature Preserve, 9001 S. Westnedge Ave.; registration required, portagemi.gov/calendar.

Kalamazoo Astronomical Society Online Viewing — Enjoy the wonders of the universe through the “eyes” of the KAS Remote Telescope, located in southeastern Arizona, 9–11 p.m. Feb. 11; cloud date Feb. 12; register online at kasonline.org.

Social Hike at Chipman Preserve — A family- and dog-friendly hike led by a volunteer, 5 p.m. Feb. 16, 8395 E. Main, Galesburg, swmlc.org.

Astrophotography: Automated Imaging with NINA — Discussion of the free and open-source software (FOSS) designed to make imaging the night sky easier, 8–9:45 p.m. Feb. 17, Room 1110, Rood Hall, WMU; register at kasonline.org.

MISCELLANEOUS

Ten Little-Known Facts — Discover memorable moments and courageous stories in Black history, 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Feb. 1–28, Portage City Hall Atrium, 7900 S. Westnedge Ave., portagemi.gov/calendar.

KAARC Winter Auto Swap Meet — Over 200 vendors offering parts, accessories and memorabilia in this event of the Kalamazoo Antique Auto Restorers Club, 2–6 p.m. Feb. 3, 8 a.m.–2 p.m. Feb. 4, Kalamazoo County Expo Center, 2900 Lake St., kaarc.org.

2023 Lantern Festival Gala — Asian Initiatives of WMU presents Chinese dances, music and entertainment celebrating the end of the Lunar New Year, with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Crescendo Academy of Music and more, 4 p.m. Feb. 4, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave., 387-3951.

Shipshewana on the Road — Gift, food and craft show with nearly 220 booths, 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Feb. 18, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Feb. 19, Kalamazoo County Expo Center, shipshewanaontheroad.com.

Kalamazoo Reptile & Exotic Pet Expo Super Show —Buy, sell or trade a variety of reptiles, amphibians, small mammals and other exotic pets, plus supplies & food, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Feb. 18–19, Kalamazoo County Expo Center South, kalamazooreptileexpo.com.

Karaoke Game Night — Enjoy karaoke, music, board games, refreshments, food and giveaways, 6 p.m. Feb. 24, Community Room, Mayors' Riverfront Park, 251 Mills St., kzooparks.org.

Garage Sale Art Fair — 145 artists selling overstocks, seconds and supplies, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Feb. 25, Kalamazoo County Expo Center, garagesaleartfair.com.

Winter Blast Half Marathon, 10K & 5K — 11th annual event in partnership with Kalamazoo Area Runners, Susan G. Komen Michigan and the city of Portage, 8 a.m. Feb. 26, Loy Norrix High School, 606 E.Kilgore Road; registration required, portagemi.gov/ calendar.

Sauna

Some Tuesdays the heart is an unlit room. You can toss gold ginko leaves and burning bush at it, but all it sees is winter hiking in, unpacking its tent. In the sauna, I’m ready to cradle my misery, lower myself onto the towel, drop my head into my hands. I know my despair is overstated. I will bake this out of me, I think. Just twenty minutes. Cedar aroma reminds me of the hinged box my mother called a hope chest. I don’t know which I’m missing most. I’m still cold when a tenor aria starts to percolate through the wall. Nothing tentative, no faltering, nothing held back. I never thought of the men’s sauna abutting ours. I don’t think about men at all in this space. I never think about opera. But this voice, unbodied in its own dark room. Heat. Fire. Moxie. A shift in my heart. No glass shatters, but light finds a small high window, slides in, vibrating there between glint and song.

— Gail Martin

Martin is a Kalamazoo poet and psychotherapist who has had three poetry collections published. Disappearing Queen won the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Prize in 2021. Begin Empty-Handed won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize in 2013 and the Housatonic Book Award for Poetry. The Hourglass Heart was published in 2003 by New Issues Prose and Poetry. Martin says the inspiration for this poem came from an experience she had at a local gym.

Arborist Services of Kalamazoo

Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo

Betzler Funeral Homes

Brink, Key & Chludzinski, PC (BKC)

Bronson Healthcare 35

Clear Ridge Wealth Management 10

Dave’s Glass 23

DeMent and Marquardt, PLC

Fence & Garden

First National Bank

The Gilmore

Halls Closets & More

Kalamazoo Community Foundation

Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra

Kalamazoo Valley Community College Foundation 18

LVM Capital Management 8

Milestone Senior Services 35

Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services 20

Portage Printing 32

Public Media Network 33

RAI Jets 12

Ray Financial Group 29

Shinar Law 25

Southern Michigan Bank & Trust 30

Trust Shield Insurance Group 4

Willis Law 19

WMUK 2

John Beebe (continued from page 34)

I played volleyball with Steve Ragotzy — he and his wife, Krista, are curlers — and he was telling me about curling and that they have it here in Kalamazoo, so I tried it out. I attended a Learn 2 Curl (class), and it was fun. A lot of people get hooked on it when they try it. Plus, I really like the social aspect of it.

How has the club changed since it was started in 2008?

When I joined, there was only one or maybe two leagues. Now we're running six leagues on five different days of the week — some are more competitive than others, some are more social — and we have special events on Saturdays. We even have a juniors league for kids ages 11 to 18, and younger kids from ages 5 up to 10 can come curl for free on Saturday mornings.

Unlike many other curling clubs in the region, we have a dedicated ice facility. From 2008 to 2014 we were what's called an "arena" facility, which meant we shared the ice with hockey and skaters. We would have to haul all the equipment and those 44-pound rocks off the ice after every session (each game uses 16 rocks). We did a big fundraising effort and worked it out with Wings (Event Center) to have a dedicated space that we lease each year. When we got dedicated ice, it just made a world of difference for us. We have five sheets to play

on, the equipment stays out all the time, and we have better tools for prepping the ice. It's like getting a larger computer monitor — you can't go back to a smaller one. We love the dedicated ice here.

What is the curling rock made of?

you'd have even more of a difficult time. It would be like playing with different-size golf balls or something like that. Tell me about the social aspect of the club.

USA Curling Mixed Doubles National Championship

When: Feb. 28–March 5

Where: Kalamazoo Curling Club, 3600 Vanrick Drive

How you can get involved: The Kalamazoo Curling Club is looking for volunteers to help with the event. For more information about volunteering or about the club, visit kalamazoocurlingclub.com.

It's a specific kind of polished granite that comes from only one place in the world, which is Ailsa Craig, Scotland. That's where all the curling stones in the world are made. Is there a limitless supply of this granite? (He laughs.) Yeah, I've always kind of wondered that too. Apparently they're not worried about it. There are different kinds of granite, which can influence weight. And since the stones are all shaped the same, you want that weight to be fairly consistent within a set of rocks. Otherwise, when you're throwing them and expecting them to do certain things, if they were different weights,

In addition to the leagues and open curling night, we have special events called bonspiels (curling tournaments held on party-filled weekends), which we call spiels. We have just one big one each year with other clubs, but then we have these oneday intraclub spiels that are always themed around a holiday. We have an Ugly Sweater Spiel for Christmas, we have a Halloween Spiel where people curl in costumes where we've had everything from sumo wrestlers to a giant, inflatable Tyrannosaurus Rex out on the ice. They're pretty funny to watch trying to get in the hack (the starting position) and delivering the stone.

We also have a Valentine's Day Spiel called the iHeart Curling Spiel and Chili Cookoff, because we can't just do curling, we have to drink some beverages and have a chili cookoff at the same time.

These spiels are also an opportunity for us to raise money or collect clothing items or toys for other nonprofit organizations. We have given donations to organizations like Toys for Tots, the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission and others. Our members love to help out our community. It's a lot of fun, and it's meaningful for us too.

John Beebe President Kalamazoo Curling Club

When the athletes for USA Curling's Mixed Doubles National Championship — including a few Olympians — slide into town at the end of this month for a week of competition, the event and all the work leading up to it will have been planned and executed by the all-volunteer Kalamazoo Curling Club.

John Beebe, who is in his third year as president of the 135-member club, says this isn't the club's first foray into hosting national competitions.

"We'll be hosting our fourth national event here in Kalamazoo," he says, noting that the club hosted the men’s and women's curling nationals in 2010, 2015 and 2019. "There'll be some of the best here — John Schuster and Matt Hamilton, who were on the 2018 Olympic team that won gold, plus Chris Plys — all competing at the highest level in the United States right here in Kalamazoo. It's really cool."

Beebe notes that the event is an ideal time for the curling-curious to check out the sport and the club.

"You know, a lot of people are intrigued by it," says the 54-year-old, who has been a club member since 2010, "but taking that first step is a different matter. We have a lot of different, fun formats for people to take advantage of, from leagues to Learn 2 Curl classes. And it doesn't cost much to get involved, because we initially provide all of the equipment." Why did you become involved in curling?

I was just intrigued by the sport, seeing it on the Olympics and some of the tournaments in Canada, where curling is hugely popular. It's a sport where there's a lot of strategy, but you have to be athletic too, or at least it helps (he laughs).

(continued on page 33)

Brian Powers

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