Special
150th edition
Section 9
1987-2001
Special 150th Anniversary Edition • Thursday, October 26, 2017
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Ludington daily newS/SECTION 9
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www.ludingtondailynews.com
The Badger returns
Steve Begnoche | Daily News File photos
The SS Badger is the last remaining ship of the once large carferry fleet. In May 1992, the Badger made its inaugural cross-lake trip under the new Lake Michigan Carferry (LMC) company. In its first year of operation as a passenger-only service, the Badger carried about 115,000 passengers — 30,000 more than its initial goal — and 34,000 vehicles.
Charles Conrad revives cross-lake trips T
he city’s municipal marina was dedicated in 1980. However, tourism had decreased 25 percent in the county in 1979. By 1983, unemployment was at 21.3 percent in Mason County. Ferrying freight cars across Lake Michigan — the backbone of Ludington’s economy for nearly a century — ended in July 1983, when the Chessie system made its final carferry run. There was no market for the workers who lost their jobs. The Michigan Department of Transportation subsidized cross-lake trips between Ludington and Milwaukee between June 11 and Sept. 8 in 1981. Service to Milwaukee ended in 1982, and the Manitowoc route was discontinued shortly after, which left the “sideline” run to Kewaunee as the last cross-lake route. In 1983, Glen Bowden, the owner of Stearns Motor Inn, and his boyhood friend and Towns Trucking founder, George L. Towns, formed the Michigan-Wisconsin Transportation Co. (M-WT) to acquire the carferries. The C&O agreed to guarantee wages and benefits for the crews. Final contracts with the unions were signed just seven days before the new company was planning to set sail. At 12:01 a.m. on Friday, July 1, 1983, for the first time in their history, the Ludington-based carferries were no longer owned by a company that could trace its roots to the beginning of cross-ferry service in 1874. That same day, the City of Midland, carrying a nearcapacity load of 136 autos and 344 passengers, left for Kewaunee. M-WT offered passenger service between Ludington and Milwaukee in 1984, but the results were disappointing. The Milwaukee route was abandoned, which left the Kewaunee as the lone remaining run. The Badger and City of Midland alternated service for the next couple years as each required repairs. On Nov. 16, 1990, M-WT halted operations, ending more than a century of cross-lake ferry service in Ludington. For the moment, carferry service in Ludington appeared to be a
The SS City of Midland is watched by onlookers as it sails out of the Ludington harbor. In 1997, the ship was decommissioned to be used as a barge out of Muskegon, leaving the SS Badger as the last of the Ludington carferries in operation.
‘I could have walked away from it. But then the carferry heritage here would have ended. If anyone else had purchased them, I believe they would have been moved out of Ludington. I couldn’t let that happen.’ Charles Conrad thing of the past. Less than a year later, Charles Conrad, a Ludington native who’s father had been a chief engineer on the carferries, purchased the City of Midland, the Badger and the Spartan and formed Lake Michigan Carferry Service, Inc. The vessels were temporarily seized by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in 1991 after one of the previous owners, Glen Bowden, filed for bankruptcy, which nullified the sale to Conrad. The court also ordered the ferries sold to pay Bowden’s creditors. In 1992, a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee awarded the vessels back to Conrad, and work resumed on renovating and refurbushing the Bad-
ger. The vessel was transformed into a passengerfriendly vessel with a game room, gift shop, TV room and museum. Conrad had an opportunity to sell the carferries in 1991. “I could have walked away from it. But then the carferry heritage here would have ended. If anyone else had purchased them, I believe they would have been moved out of Ludington. I couldn’t let that happen,” Conrad told the Daily News. “The carferry heritage is too important to me, and I assume it is to the community, too. So my second choice was to keep going, and get the best people I could to do it right and run the operation. I am convinced I have
those people.” In May 1992, the Badger made its inaugural cross-lake trip under the new Lake Michigan Carferry (LMC) company. In its first year of operation as a passenger-only service, the Badger carried about 115,000 passengers — 30,000 more than its initial goal — and 34,000 vehicles. “A great personal satisfaction results in being the catalyst for a team of talented individuals dedicated to their maritime skills,” Conrad told the Daily News. “This (is) the saving power to provide a rebirth of carferry service for its second century of success.” The carferry service employed more than 160 people in 1992. Conrad told the Daily News in 1993, “I
am having the best time of my life.” That same year he had discussions about sailing the City of Midland between Holland and Waukegan, Illinois. “We have three ships that I’d like to see running in my lifetime,” Conrad told the Daily News. Robert Manglitz, Conrad’s son-in-law, became CEO and president in 1993, when Conrad sold most of his carferry stock. Reports surfaced in 1994 about the City of Midland being sold to Contessa Cruise Lines of Minnesota. But like the Holland discussion a couple years prior, the plan never materialized. Charles Conrad died on Feb. 9, 1995. Concerns about how long the LMC would last without Conrad and his connection to Ludington proved to be unfounded. The 1994 season was the best yet for the LMC. In 1996, it was estimated that the Badger had traveled 3.3 million miles since first hitting the water. That same year, the Badger’s 54-year-old propulsion system — a pair of coal-fired, 3,500-horsepower Com-
pound Unaflow engines built by Skinner Engine Co. and the Foster Wheeler boilers — was recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers as one of the 120 mechanical engineering landmarks nationwide. The following year marked 100 years of steel carferry service from Ludington. On Oct. 1, 1997, the City of Midland exited Ludington harbor for the last time as a carferry, was towed to Muskegon to be converted to a barge and would return to Ludington as part of the new LMC PM Shipping operation. The Environmental Protection Agency almost grounded the Badger a few years ago for its longtime practice of dumping spent coal ash into Lake Michigan. The owners of the carferry responded by installing a $2 million conveyor system to transport ash — about 500 tons per year — from the Badger’s boiler to retention units built on the cardeck. And so the carferry heritage in Ludington steams on, hauling passengers, vehicles and a century of tradition.
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Oscar Loxen took on driving a route in his retirement
Al Nichols
Wearing a lot of hats By Steve Begnoche Special to the Daily News
A
Oscar Loxen retired from his route in 1989. He used the paper route as supplemental income in addition to his pay from Great Lakes Castings, where he worked for 39 years, retiring in 1987. He had help on the paper route from his wife, Jeri. “We had three children then, and every extra bit helped,” he told the Daily News at the time. They eventually had a fourth child, Lisa, and the Loxens said Jeri kept delivering papers for the route almost up to the moment Lisa was born.
Laurie Carey
An artist of all trades By Steve Begnoche Special to the Daily News
‘I let the sales staff sell. I was really close to them, got close to them. We were a good team.’
A
rtist Laurie Carey, the coowner of the Artful Codgers Gallery in Branch, did a couple stints in different jobs at the Daily News, separated by years of being a fulltime mom. On her first tour of duty starting in August 1987, she worked for four years as a graphic artist in the pre-computer era of the paper. “I would do spec ads, special edition covers, and anything they needed artwise,” she said. That would include a frontpage flag of the paper that featured a seagull flying across the paper’s name. She won Michigan Press Association awards for some of her ads and section covers. “That was kind of cool,” she said. For the last two years of that first go-around, she worked in sales, taking the position left open when Donna Bentz retired. She left in 1992 to be a fulltime mom, returning about 2007 to work as an assistant to the sales staff, which was then comprised of Lori Hendrickson
Laurie Carey
Steve Begnoche photo
Laurie Carey, above, now spends her time co-owning and running the Artful Codgers Gallery in Branch. Before that, she spent several years in the graphics and advertising departments of the Ludington Daily News. (who died in a 2016 accident), Shelley Kovar and Linda Farley. “I really enjoyed that job,” Carey said. “I felt I was a really good assistant. I did a lot of hand-holding. I fulfilled the job well and let the sales staff sell. I was really close to them, got close to them. We were a good team. “Those two are very hard workers, incredible sales people. Just wonderful people to
be around,” she said of Kovar and Farley, the two longest-tenured Daily News employees on the current payroll. Carey spent the final two years of her tenure on the sales staff. She said she never felt she was that good at sales, and thus didn’t enjoy it as much as other roles, but the pay was good and it had other benefits for her. “I made a lot of contacts, a lot of friends,” she said. “I got to know a lot of Ludington business people. It took time for the Ludington business people to trust me, and they finally did, and I still have friendships to this day. That was a very good thing to get to know people in my own hometown.” In addition to “building some really good friendships,” she
said she learned a lot about computers and other areas. One of her more unique opportunities, and one she was especially well-suited to tackling, was creation of a giant mole and a Mole Man costume for Curt VanderWall’s lawn care business through the paper’s Coastal Creative agency. “That was kind of fun that they called me into do some unusual things,” she said of doing assignments for the agency. Carey went to work as assistant manager at House of Flavors after leaving the Daily News about 2012. In recent years, she and Craig Convissor have operated the Artful Codgers Gallery out of their home in Branch. “It’s going really well,” she said, while working on her seasonal line of spooky Dolloween dolls. While the pace of the daily newspaper business might overwhelm some, Carey took to it. “It was fast,” she said. “You could not dink around. You had to move, move, move. It was exciting, I actually did enjoy the business of putting out a daily newspaper.” Now, it’s dolls instead.
l Nichols was business manager of the Ludington Daily News from 1991 until 2010. “I had all the accounting and payroll systems, was personnel manager, developed an employee handbook and took care of the company’s 401K program,” he said from his home in Ludington that he shares with his wife Ellen, who retired from nursing last year. And there was more. Nichols was the building manager, taking care of supplies and complaints about leaky roofs or variances in temperatures in the Rath Avenue office/ print facility/warehouse/packaging/ distribution building that grew with the paper over the years. “I wore a lot of hats,” he said, agreeing that many people did at the community newspaper. He even edited the company newsletter for several years. A milestone event that Nichols cited during his career was the sale of the West Michigan Directories — the local phonebooks division that Jan Tava managed for the David Jackson-family owned newspaper. The sale provided the revenue to purchase Oceana’s Herald-Journal and White Lake Beacon weekly newspapers based in Hart. Another important change during that time Nichols said likely led to the Daily News’ online presence of today was InfoPlus. The change to InfoPlus was started by David Jackson, with Jim Frost managing the telephone information service. Nichols said it likely led to the paper’s move later to its own website, as online supplanted dial-in phone service as a vehicle for at-your-fingertips news and information. “It had a long-term effect on the company,” Nichols said. Nichols came to Ludington from Midland, where he had been office manager of the commercial printing company McKay Press. “The first 10 years at Ludington were probably the best of my career,” Nichols said, noting that he enjoyed working with then-publisher David Jackson. “He told us managers what he wanted, and he let us manage,” Nichols said, adding that Jackson always kept informed of what was happening. “David knew everybody in the plant by name and would say ‘Hi’ to all,” Nichols said. Nichols retired at age 66, just before the economy as a whole — and newspapers in general — took a hit. “I retired at the right moment,” he said. He and Ellen try to keep up with their daughters. Emily is getting a Ph.D. in family and couples counseling and is teaching at Grand Valley State University, and Katie is financial director for two divisions of Stryker Corporation and is based in Denver, Colorado. He still reads the paper, and he still gets upset at some of the stories. For those who knew and worked with Nichols, that isn’t a surprise.
Proud to be a part of the history of Ludington!
HAPPY 150TH BIRTHDAY
Gus Macker begins The first Ludington Gus Macker Tournament was held in 1992. The massively popular competition drew 1,100 teams to Ludington and 20,000-plus spectators. In 2017, more than 800 teams competed in the tournament, braving rain to take the court.
409 East Ludington Avenue 231-843-0101 www.cartiermansion.com
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Walkerville girls basketball wins Class D state championship
Consumers Power ordered to submit plan to reduce fish kill at Pumped Storage Plant Mitchell Corp. announces it will close Ludington plant
1987
1987-2
Installation completed of 2.5-mile fish barrier net off the Pumped Storage Plant
Medical waste discovered along Lake Michigan shoreline
15-bed psychiatric unit at Memorial Medical Center approved
Drought hits Mason County
1988
1989
LHS swimmers Eoin Dunstan, Jay Hansen, Dave Gwiazdowski and Desmond Waters win 400-yard team state championship, set state record time, earn allAmerican honors
Merdel Game Manufacturing Co., Whitehall Industries, Metalworks announce expansions
Plans for new Kmart and Walgreens are announced
MichiganWisconsin Transportation Co. suspends carferry service indefinitely, ending 115year cross-lake link
1990
Ludington City Council bans skateboarders from downtown
Ludington’s first Petunia Parade launched
James Street Plaza streetscape fundraising begins
The frontman of alt-rock band Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in his home on April 8, 1994.
In This
Era
1990 — The Hubble Space Telescope was launched April 24 to give scientists views of the universe they had never seen before. At one point, it was pointed at a seemingly empty patch of space and captured an image showing more than 3,000 galaxies too distant to be detected by other telescopes. On Aug. 2, armed forces from Iraq invaded Kuwait and took control of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves. It would lead to the Gulf War. 1991 — After repeatedly demanding Iraq withdraw its troops from Kuwait, an international force from the United Nations, including the United States, launched airstrikes against Iraq on Jan. 17. Ground troops marched into Iraq and Kuwait on Feb. 24 and warfare ended Feb. 28. 1992 — Rioting broke out in Los Angeles April 29 after four white LAPD officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King after being caught on a video that showed the beating. A total of 1,100 Marines, 600 Army soldiers and 6,500 National Guardsmen were called to the city to restore order. 1993 — On Feb. 26, a 1,200-pound bomb exploded in a Ryder truck parked in a parking garage beneath the World Trade Center. The bomb killed six people and injured more than 1,000 and caused the center to be evacuated. A 51-day standoff between federal agents and Branch Davidians ended April 19 when the group’s compound near Waco, Texas, was destroyed by fire and about 80 people were killed. 1994 — Millions of people watched a slow-motion chase on network television as police followed a white Ford Bronco carrying murder suspect O.J. Simpson. In 1995, Simpson faced trial on charges he murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and was found not guilty. 1995 — On April 19, a truck bomb explosion killed 168 people in the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma and injured hundreds more. Anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of the crime and executed in 2001. 2001 — On Sept. 11, 19 al-Qaeda militants hijacked four planes and carried out suicide attacks on targets in the U.S. Two of the planes were flown into the World Trade Center and a third crashed into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers foiled the terrorists plans. U.S. forces then began attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan Oct. 7 in retaliation for the attacks.
1991
U.S. 31 freeway to Ludington, Pere Marquette Township industrial park dedicated
Ludington City Council approves rezoning largest undeveloped area on Pere Marquette Lake from industry to waterfront zoning
Judge orders state to pay Miller Bros. $90 million for mineral rights in Nordhouse Dunes
Charles Conrad announces purchase of carferries; vessels later seized by U.S. Bankruptcy Court nullifying sale to Conrad
First Ludington Gus Macker basketball tournament draws 1,100 teams, 20,000plus spectators
1992
Nine people — eight of them children — die in apartment fire on North James Street in Ludington in deadliest fire in Mason County history
1993 Pete Hoekstra upsets Guy Vander Jagt for 9th Congressional seat
Bankruptcy court awards First Soviet Union carferries to Conrad; Badger freighter in 11 makes inaugural cross-lake trip years docks in Ludington to pick under Lake Michigan Carferry; first carferry festival held in up cargo Ludington
199
Brothers Luke and Murphy Jensen of Ludington win French Open doubles championship
Consumers, D environmental government ag $172 million s utilities ov
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-2001
Mason County Courthouse celebrates 100th year
94 LHS boys soccer team finishes as state runnerup to Detroit Country Day
Detroit Edison, l organizations, gencies agree to settlement from ver fish kill
Emanuel Lutheran Church struck by lightning, suffers halfmillion dollars damage
Firefighters from several area departments battle blaze at Scottville Cafe
Al Hardman of Ludington and his sled dogs complete the Iditarod race in Alaska
Ludington Treasurer John Villa resigns, remains on ballot, wins re-election
Plans unveiled for waterfront park on Pere Marquette Lake
Carol Pomorski becomes Ludington’s first female mayor
1995
1996
Lake Michigan Carferry owner Charles Conrad dies at age 77
Star Watch Case Co. building demolished
1997
Voters approve millages for Ludington and WSCC, reject proposal for new Mason County Jail
LHS girls hoops standout Mandy Stowe finishes second in Miss Basketball Award
Scottville sewer system problems result in Pere Marquette River being declared health hazard
1998
MCC voters approve $3.9 million bond for new high school athletic complex, classrooms, computers
LHS boys soccer team finishes as state runner-up to Madison Heights Bishop Foley
1999
Bids awarded for new marina north of carferry docks
MCC boys basketball team led by Chad Pleiness goes 26-1, loses in Class C state championship
Air Port Restaurant at corner of U.S. 10 and Pere Marquette closes after 60 years; developers announce plans for Walgreens at site
MCE softall goes 38-2, defeats No. 1 Traverse City St. Francis for Division 4 state title
2001
2000
More than 27 inches of snow fall in first 10 days of year Ludington boys soccer wins state championship
Y2K conversation increases as end of century approaches
Did you know?
Did you know?
In This
Era
On May 17, 1995, 35-year-old Shawn Nelson had just about had it. His wife had divorced him a few years before, and in 1990, he lost a costly lawsuit against a hospital. His parents had both died of cancer in 1992, and he began digging massive holes in his lawn, claiming to be mining bedrock. The Army veteran and unemployed plumber was so fed up that he stole an M60A3 Patton tank from a U.S. Coast Guard armory in San Diego, California, and went on a massive rampage. He destroyed cars, fire hydrants and a recreational vehicle before being shot and killed by police.
The Gulf War raged between August 1990 and February 1991. The war was spurred by the Iraqi Army’s occupation of Kuwait that August, which was quickly met with international condemnation. Economic sanctions were put on the country by the U.N. Security Council, and President George H.W. Bush deployed thousands of U.S. troops into Saudi Arabia, with other nations following suit.
The Hubble Telescope, above, was launched on April 24, 1990, providing scientists with a view never seen before. In 1994, O.J. Simpson was arrested and charged with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. After a lengthy trial, he was acquitted, to the shock of many. Three years later in 1997, a civil suit cost him $33.5 million for the victims’ wrongful deaths. Simpson was released from prison on Oct. 1, 2017, after being imprisoned on charges of armed robbery in 2007.
U.S. soldiers of the California Army National Guard patrol the streets of Los Angeles during a period of riots in 1992 following the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers in a case involving the use of excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King. Six full days of riots followed the verdict, with widespread looting and arson totalling $1 billion in damages. By the end, 63 people had been killed and more than 12,000 had been arrested. The Magellan spacecraft, a massive robotic space probe weighing in at 2,282 pounds, launched in 1989. Its mission was to map the surface of Venus using a specially created radar system. A first on many levels, Magellan was the first interplanetary mission to be launched from the space shuttle as well. Magellan was largely successful in its mission, and on Sept. 9, 1994, its decommissioning was announced. After completing its goal, the spacecraft was lost, presumed to have burned up above Venus.
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Ludington Daily News Sept. 11, 2001 T
his edition of the paper was finished several hours past the daily deadline — the news of the 9/11 attacks surfaced around 9 a.m., as most of the paper was finished. The front page was completely redone to reflect the shocking news.
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David Jackson: Smalltown publisher By PATTI KLEVORN Daily News Managing editor David Jackson remembers his first trip to Ludington to visit the area and apply for a job at the Ludington Daily News. He and his wife, Vicki, had lunch in the Gibbs Country House Darn Barn and took a drive through Stearns Park beach. He turned in his resume to a consultant in the Traverse City area and returned to Indiana, thinking he was getting good experience applying for a job as a publisher but not really believing he’d get his first one. But he was asked to return and was the last of five finalists to be interviewed. He’d learned the paper’s owners already had picked
their favorite for the role of publisher, but the dinner meeting and interview went well, very well. Anne Furstenau McCormick hired him to work for her father, H.P. Furstenau, and a year and a half later he and his siblings bought the newspaper. He was at the helm of the Daily News for 27 years, selling the paper to Community Media Group at the end of 2011. David and Vicki had only been married a year and they both had children from previous marriages in school in Anderson, Indiana. They agreed David should take the job and that they’d stay a couple of years before moving on to a bigger city. Ludington became home, though, and the newspaper one of
Janelle Shade: ‘Tree nut’ By Andy Hamilton Daily News Copy Editor
J
anelle Shade has been researching local genealogy for 35 years. She began by going through 150-year-old editions of the Mason County Record to search for births, deaths, adoptions, parties, social events, weddings — anything in the newspaper about what the people in this area were up to. She’d write down on small note the Janelle Shade cards name of the person, why they were in the paper, which newspaper the info appeared in, the date of publication and any small notes that were relevant. “In those old papers, they told a lot more information than they do now,” Shade said while wearing white gloves and digging through brittle issues of Ludington newspapers from the late 1800s and early 1900s that are stored at Historic White Pine Village. “If you have time to sit and peruse those old papers, you can get a lot of info.” Shade’s research began as a quest to find events in the past that her relatives — the VerBooms, Hansens, Christiansens — had been involved in. It was common for newspapers of the past to publish accounts of readers’ parties, vacations and visits from relatives, details of social club meetings, school notes on what happened in classes, even updates on people battling influenza. “It’s common human interest stories that attract us to the newspaper,” Shade said. “It’s so neat just to get the background of people.” Her work began in the Rose Hawley Museum when it was still located on East Filer Street in the former Church of the Nazarene. “I had to wear warm clothing and boots as heat was limited in the fall,” Shade recalled. “That is when I started wearing glasses too as vintage newspapers become yellowed and lighting was limited. “When I was researching I would see ads for the thenbusinesses, and many sideline articles peaked my interest. I learned a lot about former happenings in Ludington, and how the town evolved. We can learn a lot from our past,” Shade said. She became hooked on the research, she said, and now refers to herself as a “tree nut” in reference to her quest to learn about her family tree and help others do the same. “In the process, I found I could help the community by abstracting similar items for other genealogists,” Shade said. This was before computers were in every home and in every person’s pocket. Shade catalogued what she found by hand. “Using cards, I hand-printed sir names first, then the given name on the top of a card to alphabetize them. Then I would list the event — a birth, death, marriage, adoptions, or children who moved in with other family due to loss of their par-
ents,” Shade said. Hugh McDonald donated a file box for Shade’s cards. Her husband Norm disassembled the wood box so Shade could strip and refinish it. “A mistake I made was removing the file card rod as I used regular three-byfive cards with no holes punched,” Shade said. “That allowed persons to remove the card, keep it or misplace it, rather than keep the file orderly.”
his passions. Two of their four children graduated from high school in Ludington and all of them come to the area to visit. His siblings, too, have fallen in love with the community and have enjoyed visiting here for sometimes weeks at a time. “It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life,” Jackson said of moving to Ludington. Jackson turned the paper into a profitable business and helped it thrive, becoming an example to other small dailies. He earned the chamber of commerce title Business Leader of the Year in 2001. The Jackson siblings used a trust their father established for them prior to his passing. He’d been president of Anderson News-
papers Inc. and publisher of The Anderson Bulletin and earned a share of the paper. That share, gifted to David and his brother and sisters, later became the money they used to buy the Daily News. Jackson retired at age 62 and spends time with he and his wife Vicki’s children and grandchildren and exploring the country, in part on their motorcycles. Jackson has always been a newspaper man, having grown up around the business with a father in the industry. He’s had nearly every job a newspaper offers, delivery boy, classified advertising representative, circulation gopher and motor route driver, bill collector, sales representative, and a reporter, having earned a college de-
David Jackson, left, and his siblings bought the Ludington Daily News from H.P. Furstenau on Dec. 31, 1986. gree in journalism. The bust of Thomas Jefferson that Jackson displayed in his office said something of his commitment to the industry.
Deadly fire leaves an impact
James Street fire worst in Ludington history By PATTI KLEVORN Daily News Managing Editor
The James Street fire, Feb. 28, 2003, which claimed the lives of nine people, was Mason County’s deadliest in history. The community mourned the tragic event collectively. In addition to the local residents involved — firefighters, police, medical responders and hospital staff, counselors, neighbors, friends, relatives and even reporters — state and national agencies sent representatives in to investigate.
It became the country’s tragedy as the national media covered the event, sharing it with millions of readers and viewers. It seemed there was no one this event hadn’t touched. Killed were Georgina Zavala, 19, and the three children — ages 1, 2 and 3 — she had with her husband, Daniel. In another apartment, a
13-year-old girl, Peggy Kelley, was killed along with four children she was caring for, ages 2 months to 6 years. The fire started in a second-floor hallway. Though the cause wasn’t known, arson was ruled out, said then Fire Chief Mike McDonald. Daniel Zavala suffered burns over part of his body. He and a woman on the ground floor who reported the fire were the only other people in the building when it started, then Police Chief Wally Taranko said. She was uninjured. Angela Coleman, mother of victims Jesse and Katrina, and Virginia Miller, mother of victims Rogelio and Erica, were spending the evening at a dance club in nearby Custer.
Congratulations Ludington Daily News on 150 Years!
THE NAME YOU’VE TRUSTED FOR OVER 60 YEARS!
Johnson’s Auto Body was formed by George Johnson in 1956 and is still family-owned. The business has been at the same location at 2046 U.S. 10, in Custer since opening. Over the years, the business has seen a lot of changes including new metals, paints and refinishing materials. The staff at Johnson’s Auto Body has stayed on top of the changes in the industry, something they pride themselves on, and have received continuing education to learn about the new materials. Customers, as well, have much more knowledge about vehicles. Most important to the staff at Johnson’s is “seeing the joy on the client’s face when they get their car back.” They like to satisfy their clients as best they can and “aim to please.” Mike says as the time changes, some of the customers have not. “We have one customer that I remember 45 years ago that just bought a truck from us.” Sheila said she remembers a story from her grandpa George, “There was a man walking down the highway carrying his belongings in a black plastic trash bag who appeared to be homeless. He walked onto the lot and asked to try out a car. Grandpa George let him and he came back from the test drive, pulled out a big roll of money and bought the car.” Mike is happy Sheila is continuing the family tradition of the business.
2046 E. US 10, Custer | 757-2806 | www.johnsonscarsales.com
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Thank You! Ludington Daily News for 150 Years of Service
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Proud to be a part of this community for 15 years!
Fun-N-Sun RV was founded in 1969 in Coopersville, Michigan by members of the Grossenbacher family. We continued to grow and expand through out the 70's and 80's. We expanded into Muskegon by purchasing a lot on Apple Ave. Through out the 90's and early 2000's we grew into the family centered dealership we are today. In 2003, we made the decision to open a satellite location here in Ludington on the corner of Jebavy and US 10. Not surprisingly we were embraced by the camping community up here in Ludington right away. By 2005, we had purchased our location at 66 N Dennis Rd. Over the next 12 years we have grown this location into our flagship store. We have a thriving service and mobile service business, strong new and used rv sales. We want to thank the Ludington and surrounding community for all their support over these past 15 years.
231.845.8282 66 N. DENNIS RD. • LUDINGTON, MICHIGAN