November 2012

southwest michigan’s magazine

Artists get a kickstart Area’s first Little Free Library More than a gym teacher

Bridget Lemberg:

The force behind Forensic Fluids’ fast growth

Optimist.

Pessimist.

Reporters tend to narrowly focus on

An exception is Greenleaf Trust. With

two groups of investors: those who see the

billions in assets and the distinction of

glass half full, and those who see it half

being one of Michigan’s first trust-only

empty. But investing is never that simple.

banks, we have the extensive human and

Global markets comprise endlessly

financial capital to competently manage

repeating cycles of ups and downs over

the complexities of wealth from one

any extended period, during which

generation to the next. It’s far from

there is opportunity for money to be

easy, but because of our broad, long-term

made, as well as preserved. An essential

perspective and unique, client-centric

element of success is appropriate asset

team approach, the proverbial glass

allocation. Financial advisors are very

is neither half full nor half empty:

good at preaching it, but few have the

it’s 100% opportunity.

resources and attention span to practice it.

Realist.

Financial Security from Generation to Generation

2 1 1 s o u t h r o s e s t r e e t k a l a m a z o o , m i 4 9 0 0 7 w w w. g r e e n l e a f t r u s t. c o m 2 6 9. 3 8 8 . 9 8 0 0 8 0 0 . 4 1 6 . 4 5 5 5

I WASN’T GOING TO SIT AROUND

WAITING FOR MY

BACK TO HEAL. SITTING WAS JUST TOO PAINFUL.

The act of lifting a bale of hay was merely the trigger. My doctor said the disc was already herniated. Time would determine if rest and physical therapy would take care of it. Six painful weeks went by. Then twelve. Finally, I’d had enough. I went to Bronson to talk about the one thing that pained me more than the pain itself: surgery. My fears went away when I learned minimally invasive back surgery is not like traditional back surgery. The incision was less than an inch. Amazingly I went from flat on my back to back on my feet in less than three hours. For that I’m thankful to my surgeon — and to Bronson, where Positivity is always part of the healing process.

bronsonhealth.com/spine

southwest michigan’s magazine

artists get a kickstart

Bridget LemBerg:

area’s first LittLe free LiBrary

the force Behind forensic fLuids’ fast growth

more than a gym teacher

…providing wealth accumulation and wealth preservation for over 24 years to entrepreneurs, professionals, retirees and those facing life transitions.

publisher encore publications, inc. editor

marie lee copy editor

margaret deritter designer

maria majeski

7840 Moorsbridge Road | Portage, Michigan 49024 269.321.8120 | 800.488.2036 | lvmcapital.com

contributors

kit almy, kaye bennett, david chmielewski, margaret deritter, gail griffin, erik holladay, brian lam, mike lanka, larry massie, jerry search contributing poets

margaret deritter, amy newday advertising sales/business manager

krieg lee advertising representative

celeste statler office manager

ron dundon

Encore Magazine is published 9 times yearly, September through May. Copyright 2012, Encore Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Editorial, circulation and advertising correspondence should be sent to: www.encorekalamazoo.com

Great flavor comes from deep roots.

350 S. Burdick, Suite 214, Kalamazoo, MI 49007 Telephone: (269) 383-4433 Fax number: (269) 383-9767 E-mail: Publisher@encorekalamazoo.com

bellsbeer.com 4 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

© Bell's Brewery, Inc., Comstock, MI

since 1985

The staff at Encore welcomes written comment from readers, and articles and poems for submission with no obligation to print or return them. To learn more about us or to comment, you may visit www. encorekalamazoo.com. Encore subscription rates: one year $27, two years $53, three years $78. Current single issue and newsstand $4, $10 by mail. Back issues $6, $12 by mail. Advertising rates on request. Closing date for space is 28 days prior to publication date. Final date for print-ready copy is 21 days prior to publication date.

n o v e m b e r 2012

features

Bridget Lemberg Her drug-testing company is one of the fastest growing firms in Southwest Michigan.

20 Up Front

Physical Educator 24 Teacher Karen Anderson’s influence goes beyond her daily P.E. classes.

Kickstarting Artists With a little crowdsourcing and a lot of local support, Aubrey Jewel and Bannon Backhus are making their artistic visions a reality.

30

6 Speed Racer Teen Nate Frazier finds challenges in pursuing speedskating aspirations.

9 Photo Challenge You know you’ve seen it, but where?

Solve our picture puzzler and win a gift certificate to Lana’s Boutique.

10 Update Catch up with Dr. Lia Gaggino, who has the health – mental and physical – of children at heart.

14 Good Works One family’s effort to bring Little Free Libraries to Southwest Michigan.

16 Savor

Friends embark on spirited venture — making gin.

Arts

36 Collaborative Dance There’s more than meets the eye

behind Ballet Arts Ensemble’s holiday shows.

37 Poetic Pages Susan Ramsey’s new book,

A Mind Like This, is prize-winning poetry.

38 Poetry 39 Events of Note Departments On the cover: Bridget Lemberg, CEO of Forensic Fluids Laboratories, photograph courtesy of FFL. Correction: Photographer Mark Troyer deserved, but did not get, credit for the outstanding photos of John Campos and the Cornfed Girls which appeared in October’s Encore. Our apologies to Mark and our thanks for allowing us to publish his work.

19 First Glance An inspiring image by a local shutterbug.

44 Massie’s Michigan There was plenty of steamy – and seamy

– behavior on Lake Michigan steamers.

50 The Last Word Is there a message to what the cat dragged in?

Jerry Search

up front encore

Speedskater Nate Frazier, front, claimed a gold medal in the 2012 U.S. Junior Championships.

by

marie lee

Need for Speed Young speedskater finds challenges in pursuing sport

W

hen Dan and Sandra “Sam” Frazier’s 13-year-old son, Nate, decided he wanted to speedskate competitively, they embraced his ambition. Nate, already proficient at hockey, was also a champion quarter-midget race-car driver before he was out of middle school, so his thirst for speed wasn’t a surprise.

But what the Fraziers were not prepared for were the challenges that came with supporting their son’s speedskating ambitions.

“It’s such a small sport,” says Dan Frazier. Despite the fact that Southwest Michigan is replete with indoor ice rinks — “six sheets,” says Frazier as he counts them off on his fingers — speedskaters are few and far between in an area more known for its hockey and figure-skating programs.

Through the Internet, Dan discovered the West Michigan Speed Skating Club (WMSSC), which practices in Grand Rapids and Muskegon. He and Nate ventured up to a club session in Grand Rapids, where the boy got to try loaner skates for three free sessions. Not only was Nate hooked, but he showed an early talent for the sport.

Thus began a weekly routine of trekking to nightly practices in Grand Rapids and Muskegon, with Nate jumping in the car shortly after school and riding to whichever 6 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

far-flung location had a club session. Six months later, Nate qualified for the Short Track National Championships in his age group, and the Fraziers knew that their commutes north weren’t going away.

It didn’t take long for Dan, a Kalamazoo Public Safety officer, to decide he needed to bring the sport closer to home.

Frazier approached Wings Stadium management, which had recently purchased the Twin Star ice facility in Oshtemo Township, making the company the predominant owner of the area’s rinks.

“They went out of their way to accommodate us,” says Frazier, and the Southwest Michigan Speedskating Club was born. Through posters at rinks and word of mouth, the fledgling club began attracting a handful of speedskaters to its Friday-night drop-in sessions, including Darcie Dohnal Sharapova, a 1992 Olympic silver medalist in the 3,000meter relay. Following in the footsteps of the WMSSC, Southwest Michigan’s chapter offers loaner skates to newcomers but requires that they have proper protective equipment, which for newbies can be a bike helmet.

“It’s nice to at least be able to practice here one day during the week,” Dan says.

As Nate began to chalk up more and more wins, he needed to ratchet up the coaching and training. In 2011, he opted to spend his entire summer away from home attending a training camp in Pittsburgh. He returned 30 pounds lighter and driven.

While he had been training exclusively in short track, Nate entered his first long-track event that November. Long track differs from short track in that the skates have hinged blades

encore up front

that’s where I started

feeling like me again

Peg Sarantos couldn’t even put her shoes on. For a person whose life was all about being active, it was a nightmare.

That’s where making a personal connection with members of the team at Borgess made all the difference. They eased her fears about having surgery, and after a minimally invasive procedure at the Borgess Brain & Spine Institute, her pain was finally gone.

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up front encore (often called “clappers” for the clicking noise they make) and is more about endurance than speed. He hadn’t trained in long track because no local ice facility had a rink long enough to train for the sport. “I like long track a lot more,” he says. “It feels more comfortable to me.”

Fortunately for Nate, short track is a good way to train for long track.

He quickly qualified for the U.S. Junior level and just four months later claimed the gold medal for his age division in the 3,000 meters at the U.S. Junior Championships.

While Nate tries not to look too far ahead when asked about his athletic aspirations, he acknowledges that he wants to continue to master the sport. Meanwhile, the Fraziers recognize that the obstacles in Nate’s way aren’t just the other competitors, but finding the training.

The nearest long-track training facility is in Milwaukee, where the Fraziers spent several weekends last season so Nate could train and compete.

Nate spent much of the early part of this summer at a camp in Washington, D.C., working with top coaches, until a leg injury brought him home for a few weeks of healing and rehabilitation.

With skates at more than $2,000 a pair and costs for camps and ice time mounting, Nate’s parents have their eyes on the financial challenges of pursuing the sport as well. As their son’s successes grow, they hope to find sponsors who can help them offset his training costs.

“I try to set realistic goals,” says Nate. “I just have to take it one step at a time.”

To follow Nate’s progress, visit his website at natefrazier.com. For more information about the Southwest Michigan Speedskating Club, go to wingsstadium.com/ice-events/skating/west-michigan-speedskating-club/ or visit the club’s Facebook page.

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up front PHOTO CHALLENGE

Where is this?

Tell us for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to Lana’s Boutique!

1) Go to www.encorekalamazoo.com, and click on the Photo Challenge tab at the top.

Fill out the form and submit your answer; or 2) E-mail your answer to editor@encorekalamazoo.com. Type “Where is this?” in the subject line. Include your name, address and telephone number; or 3) Mail your answer to Encore, 350 S. Burdick St., Ste. 214, Kalamazoo, MI 49007; include your contact information.

One entry per person. The winner will be chosen in a random drawing of correct entries.

Entries must be received by Nov. 15, 2012. The correct answer will be printed in our December issue and on Encore’s website beginning Dec. 1.

photo challenge winner

Erik Holladay

Alas, we had no correct answers to the October Photo Challenge image of a light fixture outside the 5/3 Bank building on West Michigan Ave. in downtown Kalamazoo.

Don’t be discouraged and try your hand at this month’s challenge at left.

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 9

Erik Holladay

update up front

In celebration of its 40th year, Encore is taking a second look at some of those who have been featured in past issues of the magazine. This month we catch up with pediatrician Dr. Lia Gaggino, who was profiled in Encore in 1997.

C h i l d r e n ’s m e n ta l h e a lt h

h as b eco m e PASSIO N fo r p e diat ric ia n by

Margaret DeRitter

10 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

Dr. Lia Gaggino checks out 10-month old Ruth Overacker.

D

r. Lia Gaggino’s passion these days is children’s mental health, and she’s trying to help make kids healthier not only through her job but through her advocacy efforts.

As a full-time pediatrician at Bronson Rambling Road Pediatrics, she sees primary-school children with headaches and stomachaches from anxiety, teenagers who smoke marijuana to ease their worries, girls in emotionally and physically abusive dating relationships and young adults with serious mood disorders.

“One kid, an 18-year-old, came to me begging me to restart his medication. He said, ‘I’m going to go to jail if I’m not treated.’ He has a horrific mood disorder.”

Gaggino says she and other doctors didn’t see nearly as many children with mental-health problems in the 1980s, when she was doing her residency. But today “in primary-care pediatrics, mental-health issues are about a third of what we do,” she says, as poverty, unemployment, domestic violence, substance abuse and the growing use of Facebook and texting all contribute to the problems children face.

up front update So Gaggino decided to get more training.

“I spent about 18 months on my own time working with Dr. Mark Sloan,” says Gaggino.

“He’s fabulous at children’s mental health.”

She also attended seminars on psychotropic medications and psychiatric disorders.

But she wanted to do more than improve her ability to treat children. She also wanted to change local and national policies and practices to strengthen children’s care.

It’s important for doctors, educators and mental-health professionals to work together, she says, but these groups tend to work in “silos.” “If I have a cardiology problem with one of my patients, I just call a cardiologist and say, ‘’What should I do?’ With psychiatrists, we just don’t have those kinds of relationships. The biggest issue is communication. We all speak different languages.

Kalamazoo is service-rich, but we are linkage-poor.”

To help improve communication and get things done, Gaggino and Sloan began meeting about four years ago with people like Michael Rice, superintendent of Kalamazoo Public Schools, and Jeff Patton, CEO of Kalamazoo Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

“Now we’re a working group of eight people involved in primary care, mental-health care and primary education. We did a conference on mental health in 2009 that Community

Mental Health funded, and schools have done in-services (workshops) for primarycare physicians.” The group is planning another conference in December on neurobehavioral challenges in children.

Gaggino also got involved with the Michigan chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Initially, she called to say she’d like to serve on the mental-health committee. “‘There isn’t one,’ they told me, so I became a committee of one.” Later, others joined her.

In 2010 she was invited to serve as vice president of the chapter’s board, and in September of this year she was inducted as president of the board.

This board service has given her a chance to influence policy on a national level. She was concerned, for example, about the frequent lack of communication between psychiatric hospitals and primary-care physicians when patients were discharged from hospitals.

Patients were showing up with no record of their treatment, she says. So she put forth a resolution on the issue in March to the American Academy of Pediatrics, and it was approved. “They can now use this as a policy statement.”

The coalition she helped form worked on the issue locally two years earlier, conducting discussions with Grand Rapids psychiatric hospitals Pine Rest and Forest View and Kalamazoo’s Borgess Medical Center. “They

all agreed (to improve communication with primary-care physicians) so now we have better relationships with those institutions.”

Gaggino says she’s been able to do so much advocacy for children because her two daughters are grown — they’re 26 and 21 — and because she has a very supportive husband, Roger Parzyck, a historic preservationist who owns the Heritage Co., in downtown Kalamazoo. “I couldn’t do it without my husband. He’s the most generous person I know.”

Back in 1997, when she was first featured in Encore, Gaggino was especially concerned about messages the culture was sending girls about body image, self-image and sexuality. She and other women wanted to counter these messages, build girls’ confidence and inspire career dreams so they started a program called Dreaming Me in which women volunteers made presentations on their careers to groups of 10- to 14-year old girls. The program lasted about five years and served hundreds of girls.

She’s still concerned about the culture’s messages to girls — “The sexualization of clothing for little girls, it’s really appalling,” she says — but she’s broadened her vision.

“I’ve broadened it from girls to children in general. And the biggest impact I can make at this point in my career is affecting policy.

I like to use my voice to make a difference.”

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 11

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good works up front

The Lane-Davies family, below from left: Hayden, Elizabeth, Aaron and Hannah.

At left, the Little Free Library constructed by Hannah and her father, Aaron.

by

Marie Lee

Teenager builds Kalamazoo’s first ‘ birdhouse with books’

Hannah Lane-Davies, 13, was out for a jog with her mother, Elizabeth, during a recent visit to St. Paul, Minn., when they saw what Hannah describes as “a large birdhouse with books in it” on a nearby lawn.

They checked it out and discovered it was a Little Free Library, part of a movement to promote literacy and love of reading by providing free book exchanges. The idea is simple: take a book or leave a book.

“It was love at first sight, and we saw three of them within a one-block radius,” says Hannah. “I knew that Kalamazoo needed a Little Free Library, and I wanted to bring this cool idea home.”

On an evening in September, with a couple dozen neighbors watching, Hannah untied a large red ribbon around her own birdhouselike structure, thus opening Kalamazoo’s first Little Free Library, located at 615 Edgemoor Ave., in the Westnedge Hill neighborhood.

It is Little Free Library No. 3,761 and at this point Kalamazoo’s only one.

“My goal is to see about 10 more in Kalamazoo,” Hannah says. “When I did my research, I found out that Michigan only has 12. Ours is No. 13. There might be more, but those are the officially registered ones.”

14 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

Betsy Elsevier Photography

Call it the little library that curiosity built.

“Officially registered” means that the Little Free Library is part of an effort begun by Todd Bol and Rick Brooks of Hudson, Wis., in 2009 to create free book exchanges to promote literacy. The pair developed the idea of the Little Free Library as a tribute to their mothers, with a goal of building more libraries than Andrew Carnegie. The organization reached its goal in August, surpassing 2,510 LFLs, including an installation in Africa.

Hannah says that creating the LFL was a fun project that piqued a lot of interest among passersby. She and her father, Aaron, a pediatric doctor at Bronson Methodist Hospital, downloaded plans from the LFL’s website and constructed their library using salvaged cedar boards and shingles

from a construction project. They modified the design a bit to include a fairy door on the side.

“When we were building it, we met all sorts of cool people who stopped and asked, ‘What is this? What are you making?’” Hannah says. “I love all the fairy doors you see in Ann Arbor and wanted to add that. If you leave a little present for the fairy, like a flower or something, you never know if she’ll leave something back.”

Before Hannah and her father had even finished construction, they received five bags of donated books from various neighbors and friends.

The library has room for roughly 40 books, and, as the steward of the library, Hannah knows it’s her job to make sure the library stays stocked with a variety of children’s and adult books. She asks only two things of library patrons: If you give a book, put your name in it and write something about why you liked the book. If you take a book, sign your name in it and leave a little note about it when you return it.

“The library belongs to everybody — neighbors, friends and people we don’t know yet,” she explains. “When you take a book, look inside to see who gave it and who else has read it.”

Building the Little Free Library is just one of many projects the Lane-Davies family hopes to engage in this year. Hannah and her twin brother, Hayden, are experiencing a “bonus year” — essentially taking a year off from full-time school between eighth and ninth grade. The twins skipped fourth grade at the Kazoo School, and their parents saw the bonus year as the perfect opportunity to let them mature a little bit while experiencing the world. They are continuing their education by traveling and doing experiential learning, including writing a blog on their adventures.

Thus came a complication for Hannah’s Little Free Library plan. The day after she opened it, she, her mother and brother left for a month in Appalachia, where they will engage in a service project cleaning up the Appalachian Trail, hike and bike other trails and visit Tennessee, Virginia, Florida and North Carolina. It wasn’t hard for Hannah to find a substitute steward, however.

Grace Marshall, 11, who lives two houses from the Lane-Davies family tended the LFL in Hannah’s absence.

Hannah has high hopes for her little library — she wants it to be the impetus for more LFLs in the area, and she plans to seek a grant to fund additional LFLs and find stewards in other neighborhoods for the libraries.

“Kalamazoo needs more Little Free Libraries,” she says. “They promote literacy in kids and adults alike and also promote community and better neighborhood relationships by sharing the love of reading and books.”

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SAVOR UP FRONT

engage in a spirited venture:

gin

The still at Yahara Bay Distillers in Madison, Wis., that Two Birds uses is named Carl, at far left. At left, each Greyling label is applied by hand to the finished product.

by

Brian Lam

After more than half a century, Michigan is seeing grayling again, or, no, make that Greyling.

The small, silver-scaled fish known as grayling, considered to be part of the salmon family, swam Michigan’s streams and rivers until overfishing and pollution depleted their populations. Now a local teacher, Ryan Bailey, and his business partner, Nate Jonjevic, are bringing that history home — not to the waterways, but in a bottle.

“Greyling is our homage to Michigan,” says Bailey of the first micro-distilled gin from his and Jonjevic’s new venture: Two Birds Artisan Spirits. “We’re Michigan natives, and we wanted to tie our product to a bit of Michigan history by naming our first product Greyling.”

Invoking the microbrew explosion of the last few decades, and the success of local beers in Southwest

16 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

Michigan, the Two Birds owners believe they are at the forefront of a new movement of micro-distillers.

“We knew we wanted to do spirits,” says Bailey, an English teacher and tennis coach at Kalamazoo Central High School. “At this point the market for microbrews is saturated, and we both really enjoy spirits.”

For the new distillers, gin was an obvious choice. Whiskeys and darker liquors usually require expensive casks and considerable amounts of time to age. It could take years before the distillers would see any return on investment.

Gins intrigued the duo because of the botanicals used to give gin its unique flavor. Juniper berries are a universal standard for gins, but after that it’s up to the creativity of the producer.

“We wanted a different kind of gin,” says Bailey. “We did some experimenting with local botanicals and eventually settled on lavender.” It’s important to note that Greyling Modern Dry Gin from Two Birds is not a lavender-flavored gin. A gin’s botanicals are added before or during the distillation process, depending on the production method. While each botanical affects the spirit differently, it does not have the same effect as, say, the raspberry of a raspberry vodka. In that case, artificial raspberry flavors are added after distillation.

Bailey is no neophyte when it comes to concocting alcoholic beverages. He used to watch his grandfather Robert Bailey make his own wine, and the interest took

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“We actually got into Missouri first,” says Bailey. “That state’s liquor laws made it a little easier to start selling our gin. We’re now in a number of restaurants and liquor stores in the Kansas City area.”

In October, Two Birds was cleared to sell in Michigan. This was exciting for the gin makers, who eventually want to start their own distillery in Southwest Michigan.

Currently, federal law prevents personal pot stills for home distillation, and the young entrepreneurs aren’t quite ready to purchase commercial stills. They operate as a “gypsy distillery,” temporarily occupying stills at larger distilleries. For Greyling, they are contracting with Yahara Bay Distillers in Madison, Wis. “One day we’d like to set up shop in Kalamazoo,” says Bailey. “And personally, I’d love to see the day when people are allowed to have personal pot stills. It’s legal in many countries, and we’d get to see a lot of great, creative products.”

Now that Greyling is being sold in Michigan, Bailey is working hard to promote and sell the dry gin. He’s meeting with restaurant and liquor-store owners while Jonjevic sorts out the legalities of selling through distribution companies in Michigan, which has state-controlled liquor laws.

“The response has been incredibly positive,” Bailey says. “Everyone that tastes Greyling has really liked it. We’ve finally got our gin in local restaurants and spirit shops.” Greyling can currently be purchased at Salut, Fandango, Bacchus Wine and Spirits and a growing number of other local restaurants and spirit shops.

Bailey and Jonjevic have priced their spirit to be competitive with other top-shelf gins and believe that people are willing to pay more to upgrade from well gins to smallbatch versions.

Asked about what’s next for Two Birds, Bailey says the focus is all on Greyling. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves or sacrifice our commitment to quality by rushing to the next product before we’ve got Greyling where we want it: widely available around Michigan.”

The Two Birds are Ryan Bailey, left, and partner Nate Jonjevic.

hold. Ryan has been home-brewing beer and making his own wine for just under a decade.

The Two Birds Greyling gin is the first product he has made for anything more than personal consumption. The eponymous “two birds” represent Bailey and Jonjevic, who liken the creative freedom of their venture with the freedom birds have in flight.

“We started talking about micro-spirits a year and a half ago,” says Bailey. The two became friends because their wives both worked for Crossroads, a national organization focused on combatting racism. “Because of Nate’s business, (he supplies industrial laser systems) he and his family relocated to Kansas City, but the goal has always been to make this a Southwest Michigan business. We want to be as regional as possible. Several of the grains and botanicals used for Two Birds’ Greyling gin are grown right here in Michigan.”

Ironically, making and selling the product in Michigan has not proven easy.

Alcohol is an industry with many regulations that require significant paperwork, and a lot of waiting. The Greyling creators incorporated more than a year ago and have spent a lot of time waiting for things like individual state permissions and federal approval of their label, which features a grayling superimposed over a map of Michigan.

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encore first glance

See page 29 to learn more about this image and the photographer.

By Kaye Bennett

Q

Forensic Fluids Laboratories on rapid growth track

20 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

Mike Lanka

uiz: Which statement best describes one of the fastest-growing businesses in Southwest Michigan (a) It is located in the old Gibson Guitar headquarters. (b) It was started and is headed by a woman. (c) It uses a unique mix of science and customer service to satisfy an ever-growing client base. (d) All of the above.

Answer: (d). Forensic Fluids Laboratories is not only one of the region’s fastest-growing companies, but it was recently ranked No. 807 on Inc.’s 500/5000 list of fastest-growing private American companies. The $10.5 million-a-year oral fluid testing company, located on Parsons Street, on the Northside of Kalamazoo, was started in 2005 by Bridget Lorenz Lemberg, the first woman to start her own drug-testing lab in the United States.

To understand Forensic Fluids Laboratories, you need to consider two things: the science of drug testing and the scientist herself.

First, the science: If you’ve ever had to produce a urine specimen on command, possibly at the workplace, you’re familiar with the collection

process and the invasion of privacy you most likely felt. What you may not have thought about are the plethora of opportunities to cheat on those samples; stories abound (and cottage industries thrive) on people who aren’t drug-free submitting pure urine samples that they somehow smuggled into the lavatory or otherwise adulterated.

Imagine if, instead, equally valid results could be obtained by testing a swab run inside a person’s mouth, with the person all the while being observed (“Observation is the key,” says Lemberg), the swab then labeled and shipped directly to the testing lab. If such a test were possible, it would preserve the testee’s dignity, prevent faked specimens and produce more-reliable test results.

Here’s the good news: Such a process does exist, and that is exactly what led Lemberg to develop Forensic Fluids Laboratories.

Each day from 8 to 10 a.m., most of FFL’s 40 employees open UPS bags, each of them containing swab samples. More than 1,000 such bags come in every day from across the country. As testing begins, negative results are reported immediately and the samples soon disposed of. Swabs showing positive results are tested further, the results are reported (always within 24 hours of receipt of the sample) and those samples are stored for one year. Throughout the process, a meticulous chain-of-custody process is maintained, since FFL samples are often the linchpin in court cases.

While workplace drug tests are a source of many of the swabs that come to the lab, FFL’s biggest clients are the courts. Child Protective Services, probation offices and departments of human services all depend on the Kalamazoo company to tell them whether or not people’s oral fluids test positive for illegal drugs. “I testify in court all the time,” says Lemberg. Part of FFL’s success rests on Lemberg’s knack for explaining complicated science in lay terms. “I can testify so people understand it,” she says.

But FFL isn’t always looking for illegal drugs.

The fastest-growing segment of its business is coming from physicians and psychiatrists who use FFL’s testing to monitor safe and proper use of pain medications and mental-

health medications. This segment has huge potential for growth, says Lemberg, because oral fluids have a unique ability to demonstrate, without painful needle pricks, the blood levels of these medications.

FFL also offers testing of items other than swabs, which larger competitors like Quest Diagnostics do not. Such things as toys and clothing, says Lemberg, can show whether illegal drugs are being used in the home. FFL found methamphetamine in a 5-month-old child living in a house where parents were making the drug, she says.

Oral fluid testing, says Lemberg, can show drug presence just as well as blood tests and sooner than urine tests, since drugs show up faster in mouth fluids than in urine. Because of its advantages, oral fluid testing is already the drug test of choice in Europe.

So how did the Northside of Kalamazoo become a central player in oral-swab drug testing?

That’s where Lemberg’s own story comes in.

She was born in Maryland and raised in Pittsburgh. Her undergraduate degree in animal science and her master’s degree in toxicology both came from the University of Kentucky.

After graduation, she worked in the crime lab of the Kentucky State Police. From there, she was recruited to the not-for-profit world, moving to Indiana, where she worked as a toxicologist with the South Bend Medical Foundation. She then became research director for an agricultural company in Elkhart, only to find herself living in a climate devoid of toxicology jobs in the early 2000s, when the city’s leading potential employers, Bayer and Whitehall, both left the area. “I watched two pharmacology companies get decimated in Elkhart in the late 1990s,” Lemberg recalls.

Lemberg then tried a few non-science jobs, each of which gave her experience that would serve her well when she started her own business. Selling canoes and kayaks taught her business and bookkeeping skills (not to mention, how to choose a husband, but more about that later).

Working as a mail carrier for the U.S. Post Office, walking 27 miles a day on her route, helped when she needed to tap into her energy reserves for the long days a new business demands.

In 2001 Lemberg got a short-lived job at an oral fluid testing lab, which, she says, “ is where I developed all of the laboratory methods we use today.” But the folks at that lab were better

Lemberg says oral fluid testing can show drug presence just as well as blood tests and sooner than urine tests, since drugs show up faster in mouth fluids than in urine.

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 21

Mike Lanka

22 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

Bridget Lemberg, at left, started the first woman-owned drug testing lab in the U.S. That firm, Forensic Fluids Laboratories, made Inc’s fastest-growing companies list, in both 2010 and 2011.

at the science than they were at the business side, and it soon went out of business.

Lemberg, however, was hooked on the concept of testing oral fluids. She helped start a lab in Elkhart, AccuScreen Lab Testing, where she swabbed mouths in high schools and workplaces, screened the samples and sent the positive samples to another lab for further testing. She sensed that she could make a career of it.

Lemberg’s personal life, meanwhile, was also undergoing change. Her friends thought she should socialize more, so they signed her up on Match.com. One of the matches she was given was a geography professor at Western Michigan University. But Lemberg says she waited three weeks to respond to him. “I was afraid he was an ivory-tower academic.”

To make sure that Dave Lemberg was not that, she set the stage for their first date: She took him sea kayaking on Lake Michigan. “I put him in the front of my kayak and took him into 4-foot waves to see if he was a keeper.” Not only was Dave Lemberg a keeper, but he also turned out to be a water lover. He recently completed a one-year sabbatical focused on extending the Lake Michigan Sea Kayak Trail up the coast of Michigan.

After five months of dating, Bridget Lorenz and Dave Lemberg were married on New Year’s Eve 2004 (“so Dave would remember our anniversary,” says Lemberg).

In January 2005, Bridget moved to Kalamazoo, where Dave has been a professor at WMU since 1997. In July of that year, she launched Forensic Fluids Laboratories. It was a shoestring operation in the beginning. For the first two years, Lemberg made sales calls in the morning and ran the mass spectrometer in the evening. It was three years before her business made enough money for Lemberg to give herself a paycheck. And it wasn’t the history or romance of the Gibson Guitar Co. that attracted Lemberg to the building (the office that now houses FFL’s research is paneled with every kind of wood used in Gibson guitars); it was the cheap rent.

As FFL grew, Lemberg decided to make customer service the distinguishing trait of her company. She looked for help from Zappos, the shoe company that was named one of the country’s premier customer-service providers. Today, FFL staffers are sent to Zappos’ offices

in Las Vegas for training. This level of customer service is rare in scientific labs, says Lemberg, and it has paid off: FFL has never lost a customer.

But Lemberg also knew that corporate culture is as important internally as it is externally, so FFL has become a fun and, in many ways, quirky and whimsical place to work. Its corporate mascot is a duck (much friendlier than a molecule, Lemberg points out), and on Wednesday afternoons free reflexology and neck and shoulder massages are available on site.

There have been holiday-themed contests, with prizes for best costumes and window decorations, and building-wide barbecues. FFL staff and families have gone on outings to Cedar Point amusement park, and the company sponsors the annual Borgess Run for

“About a million drug tests in Kalamazoo are sent out of state. If those tests stayed in town, FFL could add even more jobs to the local economy.”

– Bridget Lemberg the Health of It and participates in Art Hops and Mixers on the Mall.

Because of FFL’s fast growth, a 1,400-square-foot section of the building’s warehouse area is being expanded to make room for more mass spectrometers, and long-term plans call for rehabbing another 5,000 square feet after that. FFL processed 5.4 million samples in 2011. In 2012, it had done that many samples by June. The business doubles every year, says Lemberg.

(continued on page 28)

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 23

Kazoo School’s full-time P.E. teacher

Erik Holladay

Fitness and sportsmanship are name of the game for Karen Anderson

24 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

K

by

Kit Almy

aren Anderson has more children than she can count. Not her own children by birth or adoption, but the hundreds of students she has taught in her 26-year career as a physical education teacher at the Kazoo School.

The Kazoo School, a small, private school established in 1972, is the only school in the area — public or private — that has daily physical education in its curriculum. Anderson teaches physical education to every child, from kindergarten on up to eighth grade, every school day. Since many students attend the school for nine years, she says, “I really get to know them. By the time they leave here, they’re not just students passing through; they’ve become part of the big family.” She runs into former students or their parents all the time and considers them her friends. “It’s a huge community from a small little school that just keeps widening out.”

Multiply that by 26 years, and Anderson’s influence is strongly felt. She’s the school’s unofficial alumni coordinator because so many of her former students have kept in touch with her over the years. She is often cited by alums as the teacher they remember most.

“She is such an amazing woman and an asset to young people everywhere,” says Erica Vitkin, a 2001 graduate of the Kazoo School who now lives in Ann Arbor. “Karen had a great ability to see potential in everyone. Standing at 5-foot-1, I’m not the ideal volleyball player, yet through Karen’s coaching I was able to focus on my strengths (serving and setting) rather than concentrate on the fact that I couldn’t touch the top of the net. This newly found confidence in my volleyball skills allowed me to become a co-captain of the team by the time I reached eighth grade.”

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 25

Growing up in an active family, Anderson played outside and participated in Little League. She doesn’t remember much about gym class from her primary school days, but she had “an awesome high school teacher” in P.E. who helped her overcome shyness, encouraging her to be more comfortable participating in activities and interacting with people.

She played basketball and softball at Plainwell High School and coached Little League in her spare time. When she went to Western Michigan University, she decided to major in recreation administration. She continued coaching after graduation, gradually moving up from Little League to helping out at a high school, an opportunity that eventually turned into a paid position.

In the process, she became attracted to teaching and returned to WMU for an education degree. Her search for a teaching job was serendipitously brief. She answered an ad in WMU’s student newspaper, the Western Herald, for a position at the Kazoo School. She knew nothing about the school when she started, but, she says, “I think I figured out pretty quickly” that the staff, students and parents were like a family. “It’s just a perfect fit. It turned out to be the best place, and I’ve been here 26 years.”

Anderson also discovered that the school’s progressive approach to education meshed with what she had learned at WMU. By focusing on individual students’ developmental stages, “we try to help kids progress at their own rate,” Anderson says. Also, part of the school’s mission is to educate “the whole child,” addressing the physical, emotional and social development of each child along with their cognitive development. “The P.E. program is a vital part of that,” because physical education is considered one of the core subjects alongside traditional academic subjects that are taught daily.

Rather than teaching traditional sports, Anderson focuses on developing students’ fitness and sportsmanship. “My main emphasis in class would be those two things: to have kids learn how to be healthy, live a healthy lifestyle, and then when they do have a chance to play sports, (to learn) how they’re going to make sure it’s a positive experience for themselves and everybody else.”

The goal for students is “trying to improve themselves and not worry about running faster than somebody else.” Therefore, twice a year the students do self-evaluations of their fitness levels. In preparation for the fall test, Anderson had a group of secondgraders run laps around the school’s field to build cardiovascular capacity, instructing them to run at whatever pace was comfortable for them. “You’re trying not to go too fast or too slow, but kind of steady,” she advised them.

With small class sizes, some spanning multiple age groups, and a small gymnasium on the second floor of the nearly centuryold school, Anderson has to be creative with the activities her classes do. Consequently, Kazoo School students develop physi-

26 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

Erik Holladay

cal skills through non-traditional, imaginative games, with names like Titanic and Mission Impossible. Their “all-time favorite” game is Pirates. Each team has a “ship” and a bowling-pin “beacon.” The object of the game is to knock over the other team’s beacon, and players can tag each other using pool noodles for swords. The game also involves carpet squares, scooters and Nerf balls. “It would look like no traditional sport you’ve ever seen before,” Anderson says.

“They have to problem-solve as they go, and it’s fun to see what (strategy) they’re going to develop.”

Occasionally these games take place in nontraditional spaces, as when a group of kids at the school’s summer program adapted a game called Kingball, which is usually played outside. With the entire second floor of the school at their disposal, the campers combined the game with hide-and-seek and used the gym and surrounding classrooms as their playing “field.” Capture the Flag is a popular game with middle school students. It’s usually played on the school’s field, but Kleinstuck Preserve is in the Kazoo School’s back yard, so occasionally Anderson schedules an extended session of the game in the woods.

Kazoo School students have a measure of control over what they do in P.E. class. For example, students in grades four and up help plan the daily exercises they do to prepare for fall fitness testing.

Kids often get to adapt games or design new ones, in the process learning about leadership, cooperation and brainstorming. This year Anderson is having the middle school students assist with curriculum planning. She provides some guidelines and requirements and then, she says, “they can help me with designing what we’re going to do week by week.” The students are empowered by having some choice in the activities they do, and the experience teaches them about working as a team while realizing there are reasons behind what Anderson asks of them.

Anderson’s teaching style is both demanding and easygoing. On the one hand, she doesn’t tolerate interruptions, and a sign in the gym announces a $5 fine for whining. On the other hand, she is very understanding of the varying abilities of kids, and she’s goodnatured when they forget the rules of an activity. After the second-graders finished running their laps, they practiced soccer kicks.

When kids forgot they were only supposed to touch the balls with their feet, she confiscated their “hands,” in “got your nose!” style, pocketing the invisible appendages for the duration of the activity.

The Kazoo School participates in a small school sports league, so middle school students do have the opportunity to play extracurricular volleyball or basketball. For many, it’s their first experience playing on a team, and it prepares them for playing sports in high school. Whether or not they continue with the sport, it’s a valuable experience, Anderson says. “They learn how to manage the responsibilities of juggling practice and schoolwork and just all the things (continued on page 29) that go into that.”

Karen Anderson has taught physical education for 26 years at the Kazoo School, the only school in the area with daily P.E. for all students.

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 27

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In 2009, FFL employed nine people, and by 2012 the count was more than 40, but, says Lemberg, “we need more.” FFL’s growth is limited only by Lemberg’s desire not to exceed a magic number that would make its corporate culture unwieldy (“maybe 150 or 200 employees,” she speculates). After that number, Lemberg sees the possibility that FFL might add facilities in other cities.

In 2009 Forensic Fluids Laboratories made the list of Michigan’s Top 50 Companies to Watch, in 2011 Lemberg was recognized

by Smart Business as an Entrepreneur of the Year, and in 2012 she received the Glass Ceiling Award from the Kalamazoo Network.

For the past three years, the company has been on Inc.‘s 500/5000 list of the fastestgrowing private companies in America. In 2012, Inc. noted that FFL had grown by 423 percent in the last three years.

At this pace, Lemberg predicts the company will outgrow the old Gibson building, but she’s strongly committed to Kalamazoo. “I like the town,” she says, and the city of Kalamazoo has been helpful in encouraging FFL’s growth.

For her company’s purposes, Kalamazoo’s location, halfway between Detroit and Chicago, is perfect, FNBM Encoreand adshe finds that travel is easy.

NOVEMEBR Her major struggles2012 are against the brain drain — as many young grads feel they have to leave the area to find good jobs — and the tendency of some local employers to use out-of-state labs to do their drug testing.

One of Lemberg’s personal mantras is “Buy Local,” and she’d like to see Kalamazoo employers do likewise when it comes to testing for drugs. “About a million drug tests per year in Kalamazoo are sent out of state for no good reason,” she says. “If those tests stayed in town, FFL could add even more jobs to the local economy.”

Lemberg says she’d like to be remembered as “the female entrepreneur who built a lab from scratch and inspired others to do the same.”

(continued from page 27)

First Glance Artist

As in everything she does, Anderson says, “I want them to feel like they’re competent and confident in trying stuff. They don’t have to be all-stars, they just have to feel like they want to give it a try.” Ultimately, “my hope with my kids is that they figure out a way to be an active adult,” finding something that they love to do. From what former students tell her about the variety of activities they’ve taken up — everything from high school sports to triathlons — “it seems to be happening.”

Anderson herself is an avid golfer and an animal lover. Although she currently has only “one very busy little dog,” she has often had two dogs. She is also one of those lucky people whose parents kept a promise to buy them a horse. When Anderson was in high school, her family moved to a property with some land, “and within a month I had a horse that I kept for 30 years,” she says. She also raised a foal from that mare. Both horses died of old age nearly 10 years ago, and with her busy lifestyle she hasn’t replaced them.

Anderson loves traveling and has traveled overseas as well as around the U.S., particularly along the Gulf Coast, where much of her mother’s family lives. When on the road,

David Chmielewski

David Chmielewski’s father always carried a camera with him during World War II, passing that passion for photography on to his son. The family even had its own darkroom. Years passed, Chmieweski had a family of his own and, as he says, “a darkroom was not part of the family plan.” Now retired and having recently discovered digital cameras, Chmielewski is rekindling his passion, especially for nature and wildlife photography. He resides three miles north of the Kalamazoo Nature Center, where his image Bottle Rockets featured on page 19 was shot.

Photos Wanted!

Do you have an image that captures the essence of living in Southwest Michigan? We invite photographers of all ages and abilities to submit their photos to Encore for consideration to be the photo featured on our First Glance photo page. Send photos to editor@encorekalamazoo.com.

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“I want them to feel like they’re competent and confident. … They don’t have to be all-stars, they just have to feel like they want to give it a try.” she is often in possession of a camper, pursuing her passion for nature photography. For a person who is all about activity, it’s ironic that her preferred subject matter is generally stationary. When asked what she likes to photograph, she replies, “Moving objects, not so much. I’m not good with people, but I can do stills.”

She would like to get into photography a bit more seriously. “I did an Art Hop a few years ago, and that was a lot of fun, but I just don’t have much opportunity to do a lot with it, but maybe someday.” Maybe after retirement, but that doesn’t seem to be on the immediate horizon.

“I’m a lifer,“ she says of her job at the Kazoo School. “This is where I want to be. This is the right place.”

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Erik Holladay

30 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

encore ARTS

Kickstarting

Art by

Brian Lam

support from community and crowdfunding site keeps artists working at home

W

A sketch from Aubrey Jewel’s The Keeper of the Stars project serves as a backdrop for outtake scenes from Bannon Backhus’ film, Abduction Day. Local support and Kickstarter funds are making these artists’ efforts a reality.

ant to make movies or launch an ambitious art project? Well,

you don’t need to move from Southwest Michigan, at least that’s what two aspiring filmmakers believe.

Thanks to Kickstarter funding and a supportive local arts community, artists Bannon Backhus and Aubrey Jewel Hardaway will each make their artistic visions a reality without having to leave the comforts of Kalamazoo.

Both Backhus and Jewel are nearing completion of their separate projects — a movie for Backhus and a book and animated movie for Jewel — for which they used the crowdfunding site Kickstarter.com to help cover expenses.

Through Kickstarter, artists present a “sneak peek” at their endeavors, hoping to lure supporters who browse Kickstarter’s site for potential projects to fund. In exchange for donations, donors are often promised items from the creation of a project, such as a print of a picture or a copy of a musician’s album.

Kickstarter is not the only crowdfunding site for artistic projects, but it seems to be the one that most artists go to first.

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 31

Erik Holladay

The Keeper of the Stars Of the two artists, Jewel has had the most experience with Kickstarter.

“It all started with one of my students when I was the art teacher at the Montessori School,” says Jewel.

“This little girl rarely said a word, and one day she came up to me with a tray of cookie-cutter stars and told me she had made a bed of stars. It inspired me to write a short story about putting the stars to sleep.”

Jewel, an accomplished artist, is no stranger to the possibilities technology can offer someone with artistic ambitions. A graduate of Columbus College of Art and Design, in Columbus, Ohio, she majored in animation. Currently, she teaches courses in new media at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, including animation, video production and storyboarding.

“There was a time after I graduated where I contemplated working for Disney, but I wanted to tell my own stories,” she says.

Jewel was raised in Stevensville and moved to Kalamazoo to be closer to her grandparents. She now creates her art on a table in the middle of her living room, surrounded by computers with the latest design and animation software.

Jewel says she was in the middle of a lecture to her KVCC students when the thought of turning her short story into something bigger occurred to her. “I was teaching my students how to apply for a grant to fund their projects when I started thinking that I should take my own advice.”

32 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

Aubrey Jewel’s The Keeper of the Stars project will be unveiled at the Public Media Network during the Dec. 7 Art Hop in downtown Kalamazoo. Backhus, at right, is entering the editing stage on his film and hopes to premiere it in the spring.

Through contacts in the arts community, Jewel heard about a grant offered through the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo. She applied for and received a $3,000 Kalamazoo Artist Development Initiative grant enabling her to develop her short story into a book. In exchange for the grant money, Jewel hosted and facilitated a number of workshops with the Arts Council and at local businesses such as Bookbug, a children’s bookstore.

In tandem with that grant, Jewel found additional funding through Kickstarter. However, on her first attempt, she learned the hard way about the one little clause that Kickstarter uses to regulate artists’ donation goals: A goal must be met or the artist doesn’t get any money.

On her first campaign, Jewel fell just short of her goal. By Kickstarter’s rules, she received none of the donations. Undaunted, she tried again with a slightly more modest goal. This time she was successful and received $5,000 in funding from mostly anonymous donors. With the grant from the Arts Council and the Kickstarter money, she was able to give life to The Keeper of the Stars.

Her book is about what happens in the magic of the night. A little girl, Anna, puts the northern sky to bed every night and listens to the stories of the stars. One night, a star tells of a terrible storm that has a boat lost at sea. Anna uses stars to guide the boat home.

Jewel will unveil her book at the Public Media Network, 359 South Kalamazoo Mall during Art Hop on Dec. 7. But, says Jewel, “the book is just the beginning.”

Jewel will once again utilize Kickstarter to turn the book into an animated short movie. Her new campaign started this month, and her

Erik Holladay

donor incentives include buttons, watercolor sketches and signed prints. She is hard at work on producing an animatic — or rough cut — of her children’s movie. Using online crowdfunding again, she hopes to raise enough to polish it and begin submitting it to film festivals.

After that, Jewel says, she wants to see how far her project can go.

“These days I don’t have to move to Hollywood or work for Disney to get my movie out there. Technology has changed, and I can create, fund and promote my movie right here in town.”

Abduction Day In the production of his movie, Abduction Day, Backhus shares not only Jewel’s sentiments about not having to leave home to create, but the same means for funding his artistic endeavor. Backhus, who grew up in Delton, spent most of the summer shooting scenes for his science-fiction faux documentary and will kick off a Kickstarter campaign this month to help bring his creation to the masses.

But the support he truly needed to make the movie came from other local people, beginning with his mostly unpaid crew and cast.

“The commitment from the cast and crew has been incredible,” says Backhus. “They donated their weekends all summer to move this project forward. And some of those night shoots went as late as 4:30 a.m.”

Abduction Day is the story of Neil Crumpton, a landscaper from the fictional town of Pyrite, Mich., who has been abducted by extraterrestrials monthly for as long as he can remember. The movie picks up after Neil goes public with this information and his life begins to

unravel. Supported by his loyal but dimwitted friend Moulton, Neil fights to save his business and his marriage as the pressure from the townsfolk — and the mysterious men in black — starts to ratchet up.

The movie is filmed as if it were a real documentary, with a film crew following Professor Jillian Carter and her sidekick Lu as they investigate Neil’s strange revelation.

Backus says the project is an homage to such sci-fi shows of the ’90s as The X-Files, Sightings and Unsolved Mysteries. “I grew up with these shows as a kid,” explains Backhus. “There was a feeling back then where people were more open to these possibilities, with the millennium approaching and what not.

Hopefully the feeling that extraordinary things are possible translates to this film.”

Backhus, who also writes sketches and performs with the local improvisational comedy troupe Crawlspace Eviction, says the 150-page screenplay took him about nine months to write.

After that, he tapped into the local film and theater scene to assemble his cast and crew.

“I had just finished a small role in a film shot in Kalamazoo called The Bethany Witch. Before that, I had never really been on a movie set, so not only was it a great experience, but I formed a relationship with the cinematographer, Dane Covey, and was able to bring him onto my project,” Backhus says.

Backhus drew his cast from actors he had worked with previously on stage and other local talent discovered through an open casting call.

Backhus also received tremendous support from those closest to him. His mother, Bonnie Backhus, catered every shoot, whether at home or on location. His stepfather, Jim Thwaites, helped him design and construct a 25-foot spaceship in a wooded www.encorekalamazoo.com | 33

Erik Holladay

34 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

area of his property. Also instrumental was Backhus’ girlfriend, Erin Fields, who helped with everything from direction and makeup to organizing a shooting schedule.

“It is my sincere hope that this film is profitable enough to be able to compensate all the ded cated people that made it possible,” says Backhus.

Backhus’ project will land on Kickstarter this month. The shooting and rough editing of the film will be completed, allowing him to post a teaser on the crowdfunding site.

Abduction Day donors may receive a range of incentives for contributing to the movie, from signed copies of the DVD to buttons, bumper stickers and even props used in the shoots. With funds from Kickstarter, Backhus plans to finish production and then shop the film around at festivals, where he hopes to gain publicity and court a distribution company. He plans to be on the road with Abduction Day before spring.

Regardless of where Abduction Day goes from here, Backhus feels good about what he’s accomplished. “I turn 30 this year. I wanted to say I accomplished a project of this size before my 30th birthday. I spent a year working on this film, and now it’s a reality.”

HRMInnovationsllc.com

Community is key Both Backhus and Jewel say that while Kickstarter is allowing them to create art on their own terms, it isn’t the only reason they are able to achieve their dreams. The real secret to getting their projects off the ground has been the support from others in their local community, for which they are both grateful.

‘I want to give back to this community with my art,” says Jewel, who plans to send copies of her book to local schools and libraries and hopes to have a “big premiere” for her movie in Kalamazoo.

Look for regular updates on Backhus’ and Jewel’s projects on Kickstarter.com.

Opposite page: Backhus’ stepfather Jim Thwaites (at the top with a broom) brushes pine needles off the 25-foot spaceship he helped design and build for the movie. “It looks pretty cool at night,” says Backhus, admiring from below. www.encorekalamazoo.com | 35

arts encore

A Collaborative Dance

by

Margaret DeRitter

Ballet combines efforts of choreographer, costumer

I

Margaret DeRitter

n the front room of a small building on Rambling Road, about a dozen women are cutting, pinning, stitching and steaming fabric. Down the hall, in a mirrored studio, a larger group of young women are working on their moves for a new ballet production.

It’s a “Sewing Saturday” for costume makers at Ballet Arts Studio and the start of rehearsals for The Magical Toy Shop, one of two pieces Ballet Arts Ensemble will perform in its annual holiday show Nov. 10 and 11 at Chenery Auditorium. The other is The Skaters.

Both are based on existing ballets: One tells the story of toys that come to life and another depicts a Victorianera skating party. Artistic Director Cathleen Huling, however, is creating all new choreography for Toy Shop.

She has sketched out her vision — “My notebook looks like a football coach’s, all x’s and arrows” — but knows she’ll have to modify the choreography to fit her dancers’ abilities. And she has just eight weekends working with the ensemble to turn her vision into reality.

“I’m scrambling trying to get everything completely set (in the first month) so I can just work on fine-tuning it. I don’t have any problems with the commitments made by the dancers. They all work very hard.”

Glancing at her notebook, she demonstrates what she wants and calls out directions. The dancers follow her lead, and then she suggests they try something different.

In the first hour of a four-hour rehearsal, she settles on about seven minutes of choreography for the 40-minute ballet. “Sometimes the students come up with something better. They’re really smart dancers.”

Huling has worked with Ballet Arts Ensemble since the youth company was established in 1982 and as its artistic director since 2001. The 20 current members range from eighth-graders to seniors in high school. An additional 26 children ages 10 to 12 have been chosen for the holiday show from the more than 400 students at Ballet Arts School of Dance. They will be joined by guest dancers

Ballet Arts Ensemble dancers, from left, Caitlin Hopkins, Emily Bernhardt, Claire Amat and Fiona Maguire rehearse for The Magical Toy Shop.

(continued on page 42)

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encore ARTs

Mark Bugnaski

Talking with poet Susan Blackwell Ramsey

A gift for ‘useless’ details Ramsey’s A Mind Like This is prize-winning poetry by

Margaret DeRitter

gives you hints about what you’ll encounter in her new book, A Mind Like This. She pulls in obscure facts from the far corners of the universe, meanders off onto historical side roads, peppers her conversation with observations from other poets and never leaves you bored.

Only a mind like hers could produce A Mind Like This.

The way this Kalamazoo resident describes that mind in her title poem, it’s “like looking through that drawer / for Scotch tape and coming up instead / with the instructions for the digital watch you threw away three years ago ... It’s missing the Big Play because you’re busy watching / the lovers’ quarrel two rows down ... forgetting the name of your fifth niece but knowing Carlo / was Emily Dickinson’s dog ...”

While Ramsey may joke that “useless” details stick to her brain like a lint roller, she knows what a gift these details are to a poet, becoming the fragments “small enough to lodge in the human heart.”

Ramsey’s boundless curiosity and wry sense of humor have led her to a broad range of subjects in her book, from the eruption of Mount St. Helens to the sturdy construction of her own bladder, from guys who stand around their pickup trucks at funerals to the pickled heads Peter the Great kept in glass jars.

The book is Ramsey’s first and came out in September from the University of Nebraska Press, after it was named the winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry in 2011.

According to Ramsey, who is 62, the book was a long time coming.

“It’s been going out and coming back every summer for years,” she says, explaining she had many other poets give her feedback before she gave the book its final shape. “I’d probably flunk a quiz right now on which poems are in this book.”

You might say the book’s origins go back even further, though, to a 7-year-old girl growing up in Detroit who got the poetry itch. “My great aunt died (in Burr Oak), and everyone was allowed to pick one thing. My aunt brought back a book of poetry for each of us (meaning Ramsey and her brother and sister). I still have it. It was taller than it was wide. It was something like The 100 Best Loved Poems of the English Language. It was metrical and it was rhymed and it looked like fun.”

Ramsey is still drawn to form in poetry, as evidenced by the sonnets, pantoum, sestina and variation on a villanelle in her book. “Form pushes you past what you meant to say so you find more interesting things,” she says. (continued on page 43)

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 37

poetry encore

Domestic This room is the room I’ve desired like a rose-twined chapel, like a wedding cake.

This is the room I dreamt of in the black dusks of my youth.

A room outside the world.

I’m light as light.

Even my dog’s dead.

No mistake — I chose this.

I built it.

A room like a helium wind. ~ This election is all about the economy “because everyone knows someone who’s lost a job.

It’s not like global warming or the war — the economy affects everyone.”

But there is no one now I’m sworn to fight for.

It’s eeny-meeny or the whole shebang. ~ I keep falling into the same argument: the intimacy of November trees, their cartography of air.

Cars pass on the highway: One. One. One. How we carry our selves like snails in shells of soot and music. ~ I carry my swaddled heart into the stables of winter.

There is a hillside place where water seeps and streams through snow and there are soft arrows of deer prints and turkeys like ships between the dark trunks.

I was born here.

Holding on to the past In memory of Bob Medema The teacher’s desk stands immovable in the corner of my office. Strong, solid vestige of another era. Like Bob himself, with those bib overalls, that Amish beard, his store packed full of antique cabinets, coat racks, tables, commodes. Vanilla cremes on the counter but no credit-card machine, no mobile devices.

The man who remembered everyone and all their business had no need for high-tech. He wrote notes by hand.

He slipped me a ten when he heard about the layoffs at the paper.

Go have some fun, he said.

It took me awhile.

At a garage sale, his killer saw his generous wads of cash.

I wake with Bob’s voice in my head, my face in the mirror of the dresser he carried in.

The wooden rocker doesn’t help.

He fixed the arm just right. I never stained it.

We always think there’s time.

— Margaret DeRitter Margaret DeRitter is a freelance writer and editor and the former features editor of the Kalamazoo Gazette. She’s happy to live in the fertile literary territory of Kalamazoo.

Let me be born here.

— ­Amy Newday Amy Newday directs the Writing Center at Kalamazoo College and co-owns a sustainable vegetable farm in Shelbyville. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry East, Rhino, Notre Dame Review, Calyx and Flyway.

38 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

Encore invites area poets to share their work with Southwest Michigan readers. For consideration, submit your poetry and a short personal profile by e-mail to editor@encorekalamazoo.com or by mail addressed to Poetry Editor, Encore Magazine, 350 S. Burdick St, Suite 214, Kalamazoo, MI, 49007.

encore events

PERFORMING ARTS Plays Titus Andronicus — Kalamazoo College Theatre Arts presents Shakespeare’s world of Roman emperors, generals, warriors and Goths, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 1; 8 p.m.

Nov. 2 & 3; 2 p.m. Nov. 4, Balch Playhouse, K-College. 337-7333.

The Woman in Black — A thriller that delves into a ghostly and terrifying world, 8:30 p.m. Nov. 2 & 3, New Vic Theatre, 134 E. Vine St. 381-3328.

Ruined — Set in present-day Congo, this production follows a woman’s journey to protect those whose bodies have become battlegrounds in a devastating civil war, 8 p.m.

Nov. 8-10, 15-17; 2 p.m. Nov. 18, Shaw Theatre, WMU. 387-6222.

A Wrinkle in Time — Civic Youth Theatre presents this tale of time travel and rescue, 7 p.m. Nov. 9 & 16; 1 & 4 p.m. Nov. 10 & 17; 2 p.m. Nov. 11; 9:30 a.m. & noon Nov. 13 & 14; 5 p.m. Nov. 15, Parish Theatre, 429 S. Park St. 343-1313.

The Hungarian Trilogy — An offbeat comedy about the Hungarian-born proprietress of a Chicago tavern and the surprises that await her, 8 p.m. Nov. 30, Dec. 1, 7 & 8; 2 p.m.

Dec. 2; 7:30 p.m. Dec. 6, Fancy Pants Theater, 246 N. Kalamazoo Mall.

For reservations, e-mail theater246@gmail.com.

Musicals & Opera Spring Awakening — WMU Theatre Dept. presents this rock musical about rebellious 19th-century German students coming into adulthood in an oppressed environment, 8 p.m. Nov. 1-3; 2 p.m.

Nov. 3 & 4; 7 p.m. Nov. 4, Williams Theatre, WMU. 387-6222.

Menopause the Musical — A musical parody set to the music of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, 8 p.m. Nov. 2 & 3; 2 p.m. Nov. 3 & 4, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

West Side Story — The classic musical inspired by Romeo and Juliet, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13 & 14, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

A Christmas Carol — The annual New Vic holiday favorite returns, Nov. 16-Dec. 29, 8:30 p.m. Fridays & Saturdays; 2 p.m. selected Saturdays & Sundays; 7:30 p.m. selected weekdays, New Vic Theatre, 134 E. Vine St. 381-3328.

Nuncrackers — The lovable sisters from Nunsense return with a holiday “broadcast” full of seasonal favorites and new Christmas tunes, 8 p.m. Nov. 23, 24, 30, Dec. 1, 7, 8; 2 p.m. Nov. 25, Dec. 2 & 9; 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 29, Civic Auditorium, 329 S. Park St. 343-1313.

My Way — A musical tribute to Frank Sinatra, 8 p.m. Nov. 30, Dec. 1, 6-8, 13-15, 20-22; 2 p.m. Dec. 2, 9, 16 & 23, Farmers Alley Theatre, 221 Farmers Alley. 343-2727.

Dance Dancing with the WMU/ Kazoo Stars — Local celebrities and leaders team with WMU dance students for this scholarship fundraiser, 8 p.m. Nov. 10, Miller Auditorium, WMU. mywmu.com/dwts.

The Magical Toy Shop and The Skaters — Ballet Arts Ensemble presents these holiday classics, 3 p.m. Nov. 10 & 11, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave. 387-2300.

Step Afrika! — A presentation by the first professional dance troupe dedicated to the tradition of stepping, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 27, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Symphony University Symphony Orchestra — A free concert under the direction of Bruce Uchimura, 3 p.m. Nov. 4, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 387-4667.

On the Battlefield — The Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra performs works by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rossini and more, 4 p.m. Nov. 4, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave. kjso.org.

A Divine Spark — The Kalamazoo Philharmonia, composed of Kalamazoo College students and community members, performs a program of Beethoven and Nielson, 8 p.m. Nov. 10, Dalton Theatre, K-College. 337-7070.

From the New World — Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, guest conductor Gregory Vajda and photochoreographer James Westwater present two world-premiere works and a program of symphonic pieces, 8 p.m. Nov. 17, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 349-7759.

Handel’s Messiah — The WMU Grand Chorus, University Symphony Orchestra and faculty soloists present selected pieces from this classic choral work, 3 p.m. Dec. 2, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Chamber, Jazz, Orchestra & Bands Nora York: Trip Switch — A concert by this jazz vocalist and her band to benefit WMU’s Richmond Center for Visual Arts, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 1, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 387-2300.

Garrick Ohlsson — The Gilmore presents this world-famous pianist in a program of works by Brahms, Liszt and Granados, 8 p.m. Nov. 3, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave. 387-2300.

Guest Artist Recitals — WMU School of Music presents concerts by guest performers: Jeremy Wilson, trombone, 5 p.m. Nov. 5; Kip Hickman, trombone, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11; Musical Arts Woodwind Quintet, 5 p.m. Nov. 12, all at Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 387-4667.

Dalton Wed@7:30 — A series of WMU School of Music concerts: Western Winds, Nov. 7; KLOrk (Kalamazoo Laptop Orchestra) and Birds on a Wire, Nov. 14. Both concerts at 7:30 p.m., Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 387-2300.

Tempest Trio — Fontana Chamber Arts presents this chamber music ensemble performing works by Brahms, 8 p.m. Nov. 10, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 382-7774.

Bronco Marching Band — 3 p.m.

Nov. 11, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Tribute to the Great Swing Bands — Performed by WMU’s University Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Lab Band, 8 p.m. Nov. 16, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 387-2300.

Band Concert — WMU’s University Symphonic and University Concert bands, 3 p.m. Nov. 18, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-4667.

A Family Christmas — Kalamazoo Concert Band presents its annual free Christmas show with special guest Collin Raye, 8 p.m. Nov. 30, Miller Auditorium, WMU. www.kalamazooconcertband.org.

Fall Evening — An intimate concert featuring the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra’s Burdick-Thorne String Quartet and other KSO musicians, 8 p.m. Nov. 30, Cityscape Events Center, 125 S. Kalamazoo Mall.

349-7759.

www.encorekalamazoo.com | 39

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Land Bank (continued from page 16) Vocal construction, many berenowned left as Siren’s Call will — The Chanticleer: The green spaces. vocal group performs works by Bates, Barber, Gesualdo andcan moresell in this “We theBachFest propertypresentato tion, 8 p.m.

Nov. 2, Chenery Auditorium,price, 714 S.or neighbors for a very reasonable Westnedge Ave. 337-7407.

residents on the block can opt to create

Gold Company Sneak Preview — The garden space for vegetables orWMU treesvocal and jazz ensemble and its sister group, GC II, 7:30 p.m. bushes and places to sit and enjoy the Nov. 8, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

surroundings,” Boring says.

Collegium Musicum — Early-music vocal group Galilee Baptist Church, on North from WMU, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 15, Dalton Center Westnedge Avenue, hopes to create a Recital Hall, WMU. 387-4667.

serenity garden on property at 430 W.

BachFest Christmas — This annual concert by Paterson St., across the church.

The the Bach Festival Chorus from and Orchestra includes Land Bank Adopt-A-Lot program leases an audience sing-along, 4 p.m. Dec. 2, Stetson properties for use as green space and Chapel, Kalamazoo College.

337-7407. gardens.

“”When we heard that the property would be available, we thought it would Thankstaking — Improv Crawlspace be a good place for atroupe serenity garden,” Eviction takes a stand against ingratitude in says William Roland, a church elder for their newest show, 8 p.m., Nov. 9 & 10, Farmers outreach andAlley. board chairman.

Alley Theatre,ministry 221 Farmers More informa“We want to make it aesthetically tion at crawlspacetheatre.com. pleasingSteamroller and a place for peaceful Mannheim Christmas — reflection, members the church Chip Davis andand his music groupofperform holiday favorites in this multimedia presentation, 7:30 will maintain the garden.” p.m. Nov. 28, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

So far, there have been 12 AdoptA-Lot leases as part of the Land Bank’s VISUAL ARTS Community program.

Richmond CenterGarden for Visual Arts WMU, 387-2436 Last year Boring approached Deborah Jack: Shore — Artwork based in residents in the 1500 block of East video/sound installation, photography, Michigan Avenue, where 9. there were painting and text, Oct. 18-Nov. Albertine Monroe-Brown three empty lots, andGallery. asked if they would be interested in having a garden space Faculty Exhibition — The annual Gwen Frostic School Art faculty Nov.but 15-Dec. there.of“They not exhibition, only agreed said 14, Albertine Monroe-Brown Gallery. they would love to take over the building Prints the Universityshe Artsays.

Collection — and from maintenance,” ThroughThe Dec.result 14, Rose Netzorg & James Wilfrid is the Trybal Revival Kerr Permanent Collection Gallery.

Eastside Eco-Garden, with more than 100 plantings and 28 species of mostly Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, 349-7775 food-producing trees and shrubs. Funds Great Lakes Pastel Society National Show — for the garden came from the Kalamazoo A juried exhibition, through Jan. 8.

Community Foundation, one of many Asian Art from the Collection of Dr. Paul and Land Bank partners.

Esther Wang — A selection of Asian painting, “The neighbors haveDec. been prints and sculpture, through 9. great partners,” Boring says.

ARTbreak — Informal free presentations on As the Land and its partners art-related topics: Art Bank as Vocation: A Journey into look across the Kalamazoo landscape, Self with Bruce Heustis, a psychotherapist, Nov. 6; Desert Forbidden Art (Part 1), alabors documentary theyof see the fruits of their — about a collection of 20th-century Russian new homes, rehabilitated homes andart rescued by a penniless artist, Nov. 13; Desert of lush gardens where dangerous eyesores Forbidden Art (Part 2), Nov. 20; The Search for oncePublic stoodSculpture — and and know thatParks, theypresentAgora: Public changed of Kalamazoo in edhave by park designerthe andface sculptor Richard Light, Nov. 27. Bringand a lunch to these noon sessions. profound lasting ways.

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encore events Art & All That Jazz — Art, live music, snacks and drinks are offered at these monthly get-togethers. The Hook Band, 5:30–7:30 p.m. Nov. 16.

Miscellaneous Park Trades Center — Biannual open-studio tour allows patrons to visit nearly 50 artists in their studios, 5-9 p.m. Nov. 2, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave. 345-3311.

Midtown Gallery — Nancy Payne, ceramics, and Nancy Stroupe, oil stick on canvas, 356 S. Kalamazoo Mall. 372-0134.

Saniwax Gallery — Blue Coast Artists — Outside the Studios, an exhibition featuring pottery, blown glass, metalsmithing, jewelry, acrylics, pastels, oil painting and multimedia, Nov. 2-16; Art Hop, 5-9 p.m. Nov. 2, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave. 345-3311.

Art Hop — View the works of local artists at local venues and galleries in downtown Kalamazoo, 5–9 p.m.

Nov. 2. 342-5059.

LITERARY EVENTS Kalamazoo Public Library, 553-7879 or 342-9837 First Saturday @ KPL — Free activities for the family, 2-4 p.m. Nov. 3.

Meet Robert Sabuda — Creator of many best-selling pop-up books, 7 p.m. Nov. 8.

Classics Revisited — A discussion about Goodbye, Columbus,

by Phillip Roth, 7 p.m. Nov. 15.

Portage District Library, 329-4544 Book Art Exhibit — Illustrations from books written by Sarah Stewart and illustrated by David Small, through Nov. 30.

Friends of Poetry — A reading by Susan Ramsey from her new book, A Mind Like This, 7 p.m. Nov. 5, Van Duesen Room, Kalamazoo Public Library, 315 S. Rose St.

NATURE Kalamazoo Nature Center, 381-1574 Dr. Batts Hiking Challenge — Hike all 14 trails in one day, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 3.

MUSEUMS Kalamazoo Valley Museum, 373-7990

Creature Feature — Animals are out from behind the glass, with staff and volunteers to answer questions, noon–1 p.m. Nov. 3 & 24.

Handmade Paper Guild — Handmade paper art by members of the guild, through Nov. 30; Meet the Artists reception, 2-4 p.m. Nov. 4.

Good Design: Stories from Herman Miller — Explore the problemsolving design process used at the West Michigan-based furniture company, through Jan. 27.

Great Books Reading & Discussion Group — The group will discuss selections from the anthology Great Conversations I, 2-4:30 p.m.

Nov. 4 & 18.

Brain Teasers 2 — A collection of 21 hands-on puzzles, through Jan. 6.

Combat Veterans Writing Group — A biweekly writing workshop on poetry, essays or fiction for veterans who have seen combat, 6:30-8 p.m.

Nov. 13 & 27.

Miscellaneous Chad Pastotnik: Deep Wood Press — Kalamazoo Book Arts Center presents an exhibition of books, broadsides, intaglio and relief prints from Deep Wood Press, Nov. 2-30; Art Hop opening, 6-9 p.m. Nov. 2, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave., Suite 103A. 373-4938.

Music at the Museum — Matt Gabriel Trio, free concert during Art Hop, 6-8 p.m. Nov. 2; The Turnips, 7 p.m. Nov. 16; StikyFüt, 7 p.m. Nov. 30.

Holiday Celebration — Create holiday decorations and gifts following the Downtown Holiday Parade, noon-4 p.m. Nov. 10.

Sunday Series — Tom Dietz discusses the history of the local Socialist Party and the role of Guy Lockwood in the 1912 municipal elections, 1:30 p.m. Nov. 11.

Turkey Trot — Search for signs of wild turkey activity in the woods, 2 p.m. Nov. 4 & 25.

Small Wonders — Interactive nature stations are set up to encourage children’s learning, Opulent Owls, 10-11:30 a.m. Nov. 6 & 17.

Kellogg Biological Station, 671-2510 Birds & Coffee — An experienced guide chooses the best trails to see a variety of birds, followed by coffee and discussion. 8:30-10 a.m., 12685 East C Ave., near Gull Lake.

ETC. Holiday Parade — Giant helium balloons, marching bands, clowns, floats and, of course, Santa Claus, 11 a.m. Nov. 10, Lovell Street to Park Street to Michigan Avenue and Portage Street, downtown Kalamazoo.

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arts encore (continued from page 36)

Lucas Beachler and Alex Havaty from Western Michigan University and 10 adults who have “predominantly pantomime/acting kinds of roles,” says Huling.

Laura Monk is designing costumes for all of them. She’s been involved with Ballet Arts for about seven years, the past three as volunteer costume manager. (Her daughter Leia, 17, is an ensemble member.) “I did some costume work when I was in college,” Monk says. “I always loved it, and I’ve loved ballet forever.”

Since January, Monk has worked about 20 to 30 hours a week on costume design, and this fall she’s had about 20 volunteers helping her with costume making.

“We’re a nonprofit so we’re not full of money,” Monk says as she enters a tiny costume room. “We try really hard to use what’s already in stock.” For The Skaters, for example, “I’ll take a basic ballet romantic dress and then add a jacket to it, a hat, a muffler.”

She also keeps in mind that she’s working with young women so the costumes shouldn’t be risque, she says. She then grabs the hem

of a mid-calf, off-white dress and flips it up to reveal an array of bright colors underneath.

This conveys the idea of a can-can dancer while preserving a sense of modesty, she says.

To prevent catastrophes, Monk makes “very durable” costumes, “no Velcro, no safety pins.”

To come up with design ideas, she often explores the history of a ballet. With Toy Shop, she studied the drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec, who, she says, did a lot of the design and props for the original production.

“Laura likes to create her own images, and I love that,” says Huling. “She does drawings, she does research, and she brings in fabric samples to me.”

Nevertheless, it took awhile for the two to master their collaborative dance. Early on, says Huling, Monk came to her with elaborate drawings and swatches of color for a new show.

“I just looked at her and smiled and said, ‘No, I want everything in white.’” Now they make sure to start talking before costume design begins.

Both women are eager to see their work and that of the dancers and volunteers come

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to fruition on stage. And Huling predicts audiences will love the two ballets.

“The music is enchanting,” she says, “particularly the Rossini score for The Magical Toy Shop. It’s a beautiful score, the setting is very holiday-oriented, and the story is very sweet.

It will appeal to a young crowd as well as adults, and the same is true for The Skaters.

There’s a lot of comedy in both of the ballets and a little bit of sadness and heartbreak. It’s just great, family-oriented ballet.”

The Magical Toy Shop and The Skaters Ballet Arts Ensemble 3 p.m. Nov. 10 and 11, Chenery Auditorium 714 S. Westnedge Ave. $10-$15 269.387.2300

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encore ARTS (continued from page 37)

She is quick to credit her friend, neighbor, fellow poet and fellow Kalamazoo College graduate Gail Martin as the reader who best helps her determine if what she’s saying in a poem works. When it’s not, “Gail will look over her glasses and say, ‘I don’t think so,’” says Ramsey. “Gail’s gotta outlive me. She isn’t always right, but she’s right a lot of the time.”

In 1991, Martin encouraged Ramsey to join her in attending a community poetry workshop taught by Kalamazoo College’s Diane Seuss. It was billed as “non-threatening,” Ramsey says, “meaning you didn’t have to read your stuff if you didn’t want to.” That workshop led Ramsey to many more poetry classes, to writing groups like Poetry Dawgs and eventually to a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing.

After she lost her job as a bookseller when Athena Book Shop closed in 2006, Ramsey applied to the University of Notre Dame’s M.F.A. program. She got a call one morning saying she was accepted, and that afternoon a letter

came in the mail saying she was on a waiting list for the program. “It was like, ‘OK, kid, but don’t get cocky,’” she says. “Someone else must have decided to go elsewhere.”

The waiting-list writer ended up an honoree at the university. Ramsey won the William Mitchell Award for distinguished achievement in the graduate creative-writing program shortly before graduation in 2008, and this winter semester she’ll be teaching a poetry workshop to graduate students at Notre Dame.

Ramsey is also working on her next book and, as usual, she’s paying attention to all that “useless” information that sticks to her mind. “You can fight it or, with poetry, use it as fodder,” she says. “It’s entertaining having this mess of a brain.”

Susan Ramsey readings: 7 p.m. Nov. 5, with Gail Martin, at the Kalamazoo Public Library, 315 S. Rose St. 7 p.m. Nov. 7, with Bonnie Jo Campbell, at the Box Factory for the Arts, 1101 Broad St., St. Joseph.

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www.encorekalamazoo.com | 43

mASSIE’s michigan encore

Larry B. Massie, recipient of the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award from the Historical Society of Michigan, is a Michigan product and proud of it. Born in Grand Rapids, he grew up in Allegan and has three degrees in history from Western Michigan University. The author of 20 books about Michigan history, he shares his enthusiasm for and knowledge of Michigan’s heritage statewide at conferences, school assemblies, libraries, community-group meetings and festivals. Larry lives with his wife and workmate Priscilla, daughters Maureen and Autumn, and a 35,000-volume reference library in an 1880 schoolhouse in the Allegan State Forest.

Lake Michigan’s by

Larry Massie

Vice abounded on South Haven steamer in early 20th century

Floating Gomorrah

T

he foghorn of the The City of South Haven blasted the sultry air on Aug. 21, 1910, as the palatial 248-foot steamer churned the waters of the Black River. Passing the lighthouse at the end of the south breakwater and heading out to the big lake for the five-hour trip to Chicago, the boat picked up speed as its twin stacks belched black.

More than 2,500 passengers had crowded up the big boat’s gangplank in South Haven, and many intended that their vacation would not end at that point. Thirsty tourists had not been able to wet their whistles with alcoholic beverages while in the port then known as “the A postcard, mailed from South Haven in 1906, facetiously revealed Atlantic City of the West” that not all voyages across the lake were smooth. Opposite page, because Van Buren County The City of South Haven steamed into its namesake’s harbor, ca. 1910. teetotalers had taken advantage of Michigan’s local-option law to vote the

44 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

place as dry as the surrounding sand dunes.

But aboard the boat several bars stood ready to serve while the band tuned up for “The Saturday Evening Mid-Lake Frolic.” Little did those cavorting passengers know, but among their number was a sharp-eyed investigator employed by the Vice Commission of Chicago to document what sort of shenaniganswent on during the voyage across the lake. What that investigator observed might well have caused the big boat, popularly dubbed the “White Flyer” in honor of its 20-mph speed, to blush scarlet. The City of South Haven, it seems, was little more than a floating Gomorrah.

The vice detective, unnamed to protect his identity, recorded the revelry he observed: “Almost every stateroom on the boat was in use.

The decks were crowded, and many of the young men were getting acquainted with the girls. Observation of the staterooms was as follows: In No. 66 were four men. Two girls visited the room during the

night. In No. 61 there was one girl. She was visited by four men at different times. No. 69 was occupied by two girls and two young men.

In No. 21 three men and three girls were in the lower berth.

“In the bar room about 20 young girls were drinking beer, five of them not over 12 years of age. One child, 8 years old, was drinking beer with older people.”

The Chicago Vice Commission grew out of a meeting held on Jan. 31, 1910, at the Central YMCA Building. There, a church federation made up of clergy representing 600 congregations in Chicago debated the city’s “social evil” problems. That there were problems concerning prostitution, underage drinking, obscene shows, the spread of venereal disease, and especially the recruitment of innocent and naive girls into “white slavery” the ministers knew full well.

A committee of the church federation approached Chicago’s mayor, Fred A. Busse, who responded that he thought Chicago’s vice problems no worse than those of most other big cities. Nevertheless, he approved the creation of the Vice Commission and convinced the City Council to fund it for a year.

Investigation of the situation on the lake steamers came under the category of “sources of supply,” since the commission felt that formerly innocent Chicagoans were being lured into sin by the lawless environment aboard the boats.

Beginning in the 1880s, South Haven had emerged as a vacation mecca, chiefly for Windy City residents. By the turn of the century, promotional pamphlets produced by one of the many transportation companies eager to cash in on the flow of tourists to South Haven queried irresistibly: “Would you dip leisurely into the lapping ripple of that great inland ocean, Lake Michigan, or ride the surf on the dashing waves of its mighty waters rolled high by western winds? Would you bask in the sunlight of pastoral scenes, catch fragrant whiffs of peach blossoms, build up strength and vigor with health giving fruits and vegetables, new laid eggs, rich pure milk? Would you spend a vacation full to overflowing with your favorite pursuits, motorboating, golfing, tennis, yachting, tramping in the great dune lands?”

In the summer of 1896, some 40,000 visitors to South Haven said yes to those questions. Six years later, the city and surrounding environs boasted more than 215 resorts, hotels and rooming houses catering to the growing numbers of city folks from Chicago and elsewhere who arrived aboard the big steamers The City of South Haven, The City of Kalamazoo, The Iroquois, The Theodore Roosevelt, The Petoskey and the ill-fated Eastland, which rolled on its side in the Chicago River in 1915 and sent 835 passengers to their doom.

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mASSIE’s michigan encore By 1913, an estimated 100,000 resorters would come and go each season. A la Mackinac Island today, long lines of horse-drawn drays queued up along the Black River docks to convey the crowds scrambling off the big boats to their respective lodgings. Many other excursionists boarded barges pulled by gasoline-powered launches en route to additional hostelries and parks located as far as five miles up the river.

The Avery Beach Hotel, a rambling Queen Anne structure wrapped with multi-storied porches, boasted itself as the largest and finest of South Haven’s resorts.

When the massive hotel, which stood just north of the North Beach burned to the ground in 1907, local entrepreneurs sought to create a replacement. One project promised a dome-topped, concrete, fireproof hotel at the Avery site, replete with a 1,200-foot-long pier stretching out into the lake, with a dancing pavilion and a dock for the big steamers.

The proposal also included an elevated 50-foot-wide boardwalk along the beach, hence the “Atlantic City of the West” sobriquet. Alas, the grandiose project never saw the light of day, but the nickname stuck for a while. Instead, in 1912 a small army of carpenters began hammering together the Avery Beach Casino, a huge pavilion resembling an athletic field house with decorative towers at its four corners.

When the casino was completed a year later, its interior was illuminated by more than 2,000 colorful electric light bulbs. It comprised one of the nation’s largest dance halls until it, too, burned down in 1937.

Beyond dancing, South Haven visitors enjoyed plenty of other attractions during the golden era of its resort industry.

A gigantic figure-eight roller coaster towered above the current site of the Michigan Maritime Museum.

Those seeking less-precarious entertainment might take a seat at the local Opera House, where touring companies intoned melodious, if incomprehensible, lyrics. Others could watch flickering silent movies at the OK, Phoenix or Bullfrog theatres or spin around the skating rink at the foot of Broadway Street.

46 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

But no booze halls, taverns or bar-rooms threatened the tranquility of the resort town. As the Rev. William H. Millar sermonized in an 1896 promotional pamphlet, “the crime, the pauperism, the wrecked homes, the bleeding hearts and the grinding taxes which follow in the wake of the liquor traffic are unknown among us.”

The good reverend, evidently, had not taken a ride on one of the big steamers docked in his fair city.

The Chicago Vice Commission investigator thought The City of South Haven, operated by the Chicago and South Haven Steamship Co., the worst offender among the various other boats that plied the South Haven-toChicago route, due to its capacity of more than 3,000 passengers and the large number of easily acquired staterooms — where the devil beckoned. But the other steamers were bad enough, as documented by the vice gumshoe while he prowled the decks and passageways

in search of iniquity during five voyages on the South Haven run in the summer of 1910.

On the afternoon of July 2, while en route from Chicago, he observed a party of eight teenage souses slugging down beer, then tossing the empty long necks over the side and splattering indignant passengers on a lower deck with the remaining froth in the bottles. In the barroom sat a young woman with her skirt pulled up to her knees. She pounded the table with beer bottles to

The Avery Beach Casino in South Haven featured a dance floor lit by 2,000 colored light bulbs.

Keep up, Kalamazoo! emphasize her remarks and to attract the attention of men in the room. Two pairs of teenage boys and girls lay in each other’s arms in stateroom No. 64, with at least three dozen empty beer bottles littering the floor. “The whole boat,” the investigator testified in his report, “seemed filled with intoxicated boys and girls.” On the return trip from South Haven the following evening, the investigator got quite an eyeful.

Two girls occupied stateroom No. 74.

One stood at the front of the dressing table naked from the waist up while the other touted herself to a boy passing down the corridor.

The detective concluded that there were three categories of “disorderly elements” aboard excursion boats: professional or semi-professional prostitutes, “vile young men” recruiting girls for the trade and unmarried couples who succumbed to the opportunities afforded by the bacchanalian atmosphere.

The detective’s report on what he had witnessed on the South Haven lake steamers appeared in a 1911 publication, The Social Evil in Chicago. The 400-page volume went through four large editions within a year, filled with similar testimony, primarily about the situation in Chicago itself. What actual effect it had on the vice problem remains unclear, although it seems likely that the widely circulated volume influenced the passage in 1919 of the Volstead Act, which ushered in a decade and half of national Prohibition. The ensuing rise of speakeasies, rum runners and organized crime in Chicago and across the nation certainly came as an unintended result of that attempt at legislating morality. Interestingly enough, stories continue to circulate among presentday South Haven residents that the mysterious, scar-faced stranger dressed in black who repeatedly showed up at the resort during the 1920s was none other than Chicago gangster Alphonse Capone.

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laid it on the brick step as softly as I could, face down, went back inside, closed the door and shut the window with the pet door, and went back to my book. Scout paced around, agitated, sniffing the tile floor for some trace of his enormous achievement.

In almost every cultural tradition birds are potent symbols, messengers and voyagers between worlds. In graduate school a friend called me, frantic because a bird had gotten into her house, a harbinger of death. Just this summer I had a stunning confrontation with a hawk, often associated with visionary power, that dropped down to seize a shell not six feet away from me, wings spread wide and talons extended. The previous summer I saw my first bald eagle, flying so low and close that I saw its eye and heard the luffing of its great wings. The owl is always the messenger from the other side, the dark side, the world of night. That’s why it carries mail to Hogwart’s. A white owl soared down at me from a rafter once in a dream that preceded a terrible string of deaths in my family.

For a half hour I heard nothing but the usual noises of the night — crickets, car tires. Then, suddenly, a small ruffling sound, scratching, flapping, and then silence. I waited a few more minutes, closed my book, turned off the light and went to the porch door. The steps were empty.

If life were as mythic as it should be, I could look forward to finding myself in some kind of danger from which I would be rescued by a familiar-looking owl. As it is, I’m a little apprehensive about what message the owl was bringing me. Or was it my cat who brought it? Perhaps not a message so much as an opportunity — the rare, exhilarating chance to seize life from the jaws of death, even in the form of a small, white cat. Somehow Scout had managed to snag the spirit of the night, but I had managed to hand it back to the darkness.

As I went up to bed I felt as if the owl’s fierce, delicate life were thrumming in me. I think about how still the bird was, holding its energies so close until it was sure it could re-enter its living again. I feel its weightless softness in my cupped hands.

Have The Last Word Have a story to tell? Non-fiction, personal narratives about life in Southwest Michigan are sought for The Last Word. Stories should be no more than 1,000 words. Submit your story and contact information to editor@encorekalamazoo.com.

Gail Griffin taught literature, writing and women’s studies for 35 years at Kalamazoo College and will officially retire as Parfet Distinguished Professor of English in August after a transitional sabbatical. She has published memoir, creative nonfiction and poetry and won the Lois Cranston Poetry Prize in 2006.

Her most recent book of nonfiction, The Events of October: Murder-Suicide on a Small Campus, chronicles the impact on the campus community when a student shot his former girlfriend and then himself in 1999. Her earlier volumes are Calling: Essays on Teaching in The Mother Tongue (1992) and Season of the Witch: Border Lines, Marginal Notes (1995).

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THE last word encore

The Messenger W by

Gail Griffin

hen I installed a swinging pet door in a window on my porch, I thought it would solve the problem of coexisting with a cat that lives in the belief that no matter which side of the door he’s on, things are much more compelling on the other side. It didn’t occur to me that enabling him to re-enter the house by himself also enabled him to bring inside the grisly trophies he otherwise was forced to leave behind.

One of the pleasures of living with cats — or one of the trials, depending on your perspective — is their utter Otherness. You learn to accept cats as they are, or you will never find peace. They are not deficient dogs; they are cats, and that’s different. Scout has taught me a great deal about acceptance. From the moment he was rescued as a kitten, running from a dog on Douglas Avenue, he made it very clear that while he was happy to have a home, he was not about to live his life indoors. He also firmly established that he was a hunter, hardwired to stalk and spring, stretch out and run low like a miniature puma. I put a bell on his collar to give the birds and chipmunks what advantage I can, remember what Tennyson said about “nature red in tooth and claw,” grit my teeth, and let him go.

One night this past spring I was reading on the back porch when I saw him tearing toward the house, his

mouth barely containing something huge. Bigger than his head. Almost bigger than his body. Before I could stop him, he sailed through the pet door and onto the porch, where he dropped a massive pile of pale gray and white feathers, face down. I chased him into the living room and bent to examine what I feared was (a) dead, or (b) waiting for its moment to fly into my house.

I couldn’t tell what kind of bird it was or whether it was alive. Scout has always been very small; I couldn’t imagine how he’d got his little mouth around something so big. Its feathers, lush and lovely, fanned out from its wings, opening zigzagging patterns of gray from pearl to dove to slate. It didn’t move, but I saw no blood or breakage. Only one thing to do.

I pulled the porch door open. Very gently, I slid my hands under its wings and lifted it. Silken and clean, it may have been the softest thing I have ever touched. Despite its size it seemed nearly weightless, like lifting a cloud. I walked slowly out to the front stoop and then raised it high enough to look underneath.

The round white face of an owl, motionless, eyes closed.

It had to be an adolescent; it was bigger than a baby but certainly not the size of an adult. I had never seen an owl, not in captivity, not in the wild. It was stunningly beautiful.

I wanted to look at its ghostly, peaceful face forever, but I (continued on page 49)

50 | Encore NOVEMBER 2012

September 2012 Encore | 51

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