In this year’s economic climate, that difficulty has become the norm for organizers of many annual events that tap the business community for corporate sponsorships.

“Everybody’s facing the same challenge,” said Pat Driscoll of 8 Point Promotions, who works to link prospective sponsors with events, including Muskegon’s Summer Celebration.

Many corporations, particularly in the financial sector, have cut budgets used to sponsor annual events. That means some events that received funding this year got less — and that’s if they received anything at all.

Detroiter Holly White says what started her gardening was stark staring fear. After getting rattled by theories about “peak oil” — with its scenarios of a future where fuel prices soar so out of control that people can’t afford to eat — she wanted to find a way to make a change.

“I got sort of freaked out,” she says, now relaxing in the comfortable condo apartment she shares with her husband in a smartly refurbished old building near Cass and Canfield. “After freaking out, I figured the easiest thing to do was to take control over the food I was eating — to concentrate on food to ease my mind.

“But then I tasted my first fresh tomato and the flavor blew me away.”

Continue reading: metrotimes.com

In a new vision of Detroit’s future, a team of visiting urban planners suggests the city might one day resemble the English countryside, with distinct urban villages surrounded by farms, fields and meadows.

The idea may sound improbable, but Alan Mallach, a New Jersey-based planner who led the visiting team, said Detroit is evolving in that direction anyway, with large chunks of the city now largely abandoned.

“In a way, think of it as a 21st-Century version of a traditional country pattern,” Mallach said. “You have high-density development on one side of the street and cows on the other, quite literally.”

Continue reading: Freep.com

Federal officials have decided against placing the coaster brook trout on the endangered species list.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published its decision Monday in the Federal Register. It said coasters were not distinct enough from other types of brook trout to justify listing them as endangered or establishing protected habitat for them.

“Coasters” migrate from streams to lakes, then spend most of their lives drifting along the coast. They tend to grow larger than other brook trout, which stay within rivers and streams.

They were once abundant in the upper Great Lakes. Now, the only self-sustaining populations on the U.S. side are in four Lake Superior streams.

The Sierra Club petitioned the government in 2006 to designate the coaster as endangered.

Source: LSJ.com

Bryan Barnhill has a job.

The Renaissance High School graduate could not find one when he finished his studies at Harvard and came home to Detroit to put his passion, talent and education to work.

I wrote his story, asking how Detroit — and Michigan — could beg its best and brightest to stay here or go to college and return here, but then not be prepared for them. The day the column ran, Bryan received the first of more than 100 phone calls, e-mails and Facebook messages, at least a fifth of them with job offers attached.

“I was overcome with joy,” the 22-year-old said. “It was amazing to find that I would be able to accomplish my goal, which was to stay in Detroit and to work in Detroit.”

Continue reading: Freep.com

Clothing the “Spirit of Detroit” is getting cheaper.

The Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority voted Friday to lower the fee for putting a jersey or other clothing on the 26-foot-tall bronze statue outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building in downtown Detroit.

Continue reading: mlive.com

If Congress approves it, President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget allocation for the Great Lakes would mean cleaner beaches, better fish habitat, more toxic sediment cleaned up from rivers and more money for state environmental programs.

Obama proposed spending $475 million for Great Lakes restoration in his budget for next year.

“This is not a long shot, this is the president putting the full weight of his office into his budget,” said Andy Buchsbaum, codirector of the Healing Our Waters Coalition, which includes industry, cities and environmental groups. Even if not every penny survives Congress’ knives, “we expect to see a very significant increased investment in the Great Lakes,” he said.

Get the rest of the story at Freep.com

A few unwelcome reminders of one of Jackson’s well-known features are expected to be dismantled today.

Signs warning drivers not to pick up hitchhikers due to the area’s prisons will be taken down — weather permitting — following a successful effort by local leaders, who said they gave passing drivers the wrong impression about Jackson.

Jackson County Sheriff Dan Heyns, who campaigned to have the signs removed, said they have outlived their usefulness and project a negative message about the area.

Continue reading: The Jackson Patriot on mlive.com

The state this morning named Wardcliff Elementary School third-grade teacher Robert Stephenson the Michigan Teacher of the Year for next school year.

“I’ve always tried to be the best educator I can be,” said Stephenson, 43. “I believe in kids’ strength, and I believe in the strength of teachers in this state.”

The Okemos Public Schools teacher, who has taught third grade at Wardcliff for 15 years, said he felt “a little overwhelmed” by the award.

An award selection panel chose Stephenson from among 20 regional semi-finalists. The award recognizes excellence in teaching and aims to give teachers opportunities to interact with policymakers, to provide a public voice for educators and to focus public attention on the importance of teachers, the state said.

Continue reading: LSJ.com

Members of the environmental group Save the Wild UP are celebrating the organization’s fifth anniversary by enjoying that which they strive to protect – the Upper Peninsula wilderness.

Members and supporters of Save the Wild UP -along with partner organizations Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve and Freshwater Future -are putting on a summerlong fundraising event called Great Lakes Walk, Paddle and Roll.

The event kicks off on June 6 with a 5-mile paddle around Lake Independence, continues on July 12 with an orienteering event in Big Bay and a biking event in August in Marquette.

“It’s a really positive way to get people out and enjoying the out-of-doors,” said Kristi Mills, director of Save the Wild UP.

Continue reading: The Mining Journal

Frederik Meijer Gardens was named a must-see museum by author Patricia Schultz.

Schultz wrote “1,000 Places to See Before You Die,” and in a recent article in Sky Magazine’s May 2009 issue, she ranked Meijer Gardens 30th on her list of recommended museums.

Other museums she mentions are the Guggenheim Bilbao, Museum of Modern Art, Van Gogh Museum and The Getty Center.

Meijer Gardens is one of the younger venues Schultz highlights, as it is 14 years old.

Of Schultz’s list, Meijer Gardens is the only spot that focuses on sculpture and horticulture.

The gardens are Michigan’s second-largest tourist attraction.

Source: WOODTV.com

Pete Ostrander and the manufacturer he works for took a hard look at the auto industry four years ago, and neither liked what they saw.

Automakers were pushing vendors like Saginaw’s Merrill Technologies Group, where Ostrander works, to cut costs and, with the economic environment in Detroit worsening by the day, the company retooled itself as a supplier to what it believed was an industry with better prospects.

Ostrander, standing in a display booth at one of the wind industry’s biggest gatherings, was not alone.

Merrill was among dozens of companies at the American Wind Energy Association conference in Chicago last week that have traded their auto-related business for a niche in wind power.

Continue reading: The Detroit News

They are not your father’s pipe-puffing, tweedy, ivory tower college presidents.

Oh, they both have imposing academic credentials, love big ideas and wear tweed.

But in a state where the largest and most powerful corporations are foundering, the leaders of Michigan’s two largest state universities are creating new and powerful legacies.

In Michigan’s roiling sea of bad news, President Mary Sue Coleman at the University of Michigan and President Lou Anna K. Simon at Michigan State University surface as unexpected life rafts.

The public universities are powering up, reaching beyond traditional comfort zones and visibly taking risks, from a start-up campus in Dubai (Simon at MSU) to investing $108 million in Pfizer Corp.’s former Michigan headquarters space (Coleman at U-M). They’re talking about engagement, entrepreneurship, outreach and massive investment in new buildings and research projects, about boldness and vision.

Continue reading: The Detroit News

Chuck Daly’s team gathered around him one last time. Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn were side by side on one end, Joe Dumars on the right, Isiah Thomas and Vinnie Johnson standing together a few feet back.

The Bad Boys were together again, not as players but pallbearers who gave their coach a sad, fond farewell.

“He was coaching all of us until the day he died,” Thomas said. “He was a wonderful, wonderful human being and a great mentor, a great friend.”

Continue reading: The Detroit News

Michigan has 109,067 jobs tied to the green economy, and that number is growing, state and federal officials said on the release of a study by the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth.

Based on surveys of 358 of those green economy companies, there was 7.7 percent employment growth in the sector between 2005 and 2008, the Michigan Green Jobs Report said, while the rest of the state’s economy lost 5.4 percent of its jobs.

The sector now accounts for about 3 percent of the state’s workforce, said DELEG Deputy Director Andy Levin at a media event during the Michigan Green Jobs Conference in Lansing.

“It’s a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity,” Levin said of the sector. He said the results from the study are prior to the state adopting its renewable portfolio standard and other efforts to encourage renewable energy development.

Continue reading: mitechnews.com

Dozens of plants and animals have been added to the list of species that may disappear from Michigan.

The Department of Natural Resources said Wednesday the state’s threatened and endangered species list has been updated to add 69 members. Among them are several freshwater mollusks and a bird called the cerulean warbler.

The endangered list now includes 396 species.

But the news isn’t all bad. Seven species were bumped from the lineup because they have recovered from near-extinction, including the bald eagle, the gray wolf and the osprey.

Michigan’s endangered species list is updated roughly once every decade, with input from a committee of wildlife specialists.

Source: The Detroit News

A source tells The Associated Press that President Barack Obama is considering California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno and more than five other people as nominees for the Supreme Court.

An official familiar with Obama’s decision-making said others include Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Appeals Court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Pamela Wood — people who have been mentioned frequently as potential candidates.

The official said there were other people under consideration. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because no names have been publicly revealed by the White House.

Source: mlive.com

Here’s what was most unusual about last week’s election for mayor of Detroit. Not the mildly surprising result. Not the tiny turnout. Not the fact that someone with no political experience was elected to the city’s top job for the first time since 1890.

No, the amazing thing was that this was an old-fashioned, normal, decent election. No race-baiting. No talk about who was black enough. No bashing the suburbs. Very little bad behavior at all, from the candidates, anyway. What this came down to was a contest between two decent professional men who wanted to tackle the risky task of trying to make things better in our stricken and troubled city.

The voters, those few who did vote, chose Dave Bing, the 65-year-old basketball star turned successful businessman. Why they did so was, I think, clear. They had seen all they wanted of dysfunction in City Hall, from the criminal regime of Kwame Kilpatrick to the near-paralysis caused by the antics of Monica Conyers. Nobody blamed Ken Cockrel Jr. for this. My guess is, if the voters had been asked whether he was a good, decent and honorable man, the results would have been much the same as the vote on whether to revise the city charter — 78 percent yes.

Continue reading: metrotimes.com

When it comes to Eminem, a lot of backstory probably isn’t necessary. Especially in Detroit. But, really, that’s pretty much true anywhere in the civilized Western world (and I’d be surprised if he hasn’t been used by al-Qaeda or some organization like that somewhere along the way as a symbol of Western decadence; God knows he’s been used as a symbol and example of such in his own country enough times since he became a pop superstar and phenomenon).

But, I mean, hell, my mom knows who Eminem is. Five years away from the spotlight is a long time, sometimes a lifetime, in modern pop culture. And that’s how long it’s been since he’s released an album. During that time, however, 8 Mile seemed to be playing almost constantly on cable TV. His music was still being played everywhere. And just last year, Vibe magazine, in a poll, named him the “Best Rapper Alive” … which was just another accolade the multi-Grammy- and Oscar-winner could place alongside Rolling Stone’s proclamation that Eminem is “the biggest rapper in history.” Yep. Dude’s a superstar in the truest sense of the term, a real working-class hero, as John Lennon once put it.

And he’s from Detroit, something the man born Marshall Mathers 36 years ago never lets anybody forget — something he actually celebrates. He even appeared in a PSA about Detroit’s woes and beauty during the recent network-televised Final Four basketball tournament.

Read the full interview at metrotimes.com

April was a rewarding month for Linda Hundt’s Sweetie-licious Pie Pantry in Dewitt.

Her dessert, called Tom’s Cherry Cherry Berry Pie won best of show at the Crisco National Pie Championship in Orlando, dropping $5,000 into her pocket and giving her a feature on the Food Network. She also won the Athena PowerLink Award given by the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce.

She buys locally as much as possible and in fact, helped start the DeWitt Farmers Market.

Her winning pie ingredients feature Michigan tart cherries and blueberries, that she was able to promote during the Food Network tapings, she says.

Source: capitalgainsmedia.com

Some Michigan mammal species are rapidly expanding their ranges northward, apparently in response to climate change, a new study shows. In the process, these historically southern species are replacing their northern counterparts.

The finding, by researchers at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Ohio’s Miami University, appears in the June issue of the journal Global Change Biology.

Continue reading: ScienceDaily.com

Mike Ilitch is the best owner in the NHL, according to Sports Illustrated, while William Clay Ford is ranked the second-worst in the NFL.

SI.com ranked the five best and five worst owners in the four major sports using the following criteria:

* Team’s success or failure on the field.

* Willingness to spend money to improve the team.

* Stability and capabilities of the front office and management.

* Amenities at the team’s venue.

* Club’s culture and interactivity with fans.

Check out the rankings: The Detroit News

If you’re a deadbeat dad who agrees to start making child support payments to stay out of jail, you’ve got to meet one more requirement in Judge Wade McCree’s Detroit courtroom: Watch the Maury Povich show.

McCree, a criminal judge in Wayne County Circuit Court, has begun sentencing dads to watch the show as part of their probation.

The judge, who will appear on the show Thursday, said he got the idea after watching a few episodes. One day in February he shouted to a man with five kids from five mothers: “What the hell do you think this is, the Maury Povich show?”

Continue reading: Freep.com

When Eminem appears on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for a rare interview and performance Friday, he’ll have about 200 laid-off autoworkers from the Detroit area in tow. Eminem and Kimmel are flying the unemployed workers to Los Angeles for the show’s taping.

“In all the media coverage Detroit is getting, everyone forgets about the people that have lost their jobs without getting big cash payouts after dedicating themselves to the auto industry,” Eminem told the Free Press through his publicist Monday night. “Jimmy Kimmel and I got to talking, and we wanted to remind everyone that there are real people affected by what’s going on in Detroit, and try to show some of them a good time while we’re at it.”

Get the full story on Freep.com

Chuck Daly, the Detroit Pistons coach who led the Bad Boys to the back-to-back NBA titles and was nicknamed Daddy Rich for his snappy dressing style, died this morning. He was 78.

The Pistons said Daly died in Jupiter, Fla., with his family by his side. Funeral arrangements are pending, but the team said services would take place next week in Florida.

An announcement came in March that Daly, who had the most wins in Pistons franchise history, was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer.

Continue reading: Freep.com

If ever a National Register of Historic, Cool, Hard-core, 20th-Century Machinery is created, Archer Record Pressing would be a landmark.

Archer is one of the last companies in the world still making vinyl records — a technology the corporate music industry decided to banish four decades ago.

This third-generation family business doesn’t fear the death of vinyl: There’s always a subculture of musicians that want their work on albums. Archer fears its massive record machines will die. And the machines constantly break down.

“We rely on the best of 1970s technology,” said Joe Archer, whose father Norm, started the business in 1965.

The company has no choice. The last record-making machine is believed to have been made in 1986, according to various Web sites dedicated to vinyl records.

Continue reading: The Detroit News

It’s official: ESPN has hired Matt Millen.

The sports cable empire sent out a formal press release this morning confirming details of Millen’s broadcasting duties: He’ll serve as an NFL and college football analyst, commentating from the booth on top college games, including bowls, while also contributing to NFL studio coverage on “Monday Night Countdown,” “NFL Live, “SportsCenter,” ESPNEWS and other programs.

Read the rest of the story on mlive.com

Here’s one idea – we didn’t say it was a good one – for Michigan policymakers seeking a way out of the current budget morass. Offer up one of our soon-to-be-excess state prisons as the new home for enemy combatant/terrorists housed at Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

The notion comes from former Gov. John Engler, who offered it up at a political strategy session last week at the state Capitol with current and former Republican legislators. Engler suggested an Upper Peninsula location for Guantanamo North, according to those in attendance.

More than 200 Guantanamo prisoners are to be relocated over the next year under a plan by the Obama administration to close the controversial facility. No specific plans have been announced about what to do with the prisoners. But Engler suggested the state could charge up to $1 billion a year to turn a prison into a terrorist-holding facility.

Continue reading: Freep.com

BY THE NUMBERS

Add it up
Grand Valley State University’s economic impact for the 2007-08 fiscal year:

Total sales in region: $592 million*
Estimated employment: 9,677 jobs*
GVSU employment: 2,887 jobs (2,124 full time, 763 part time)

*Figures in Kent, Ottawa and Muskegon counties attributed to GVSU’s existence.

For the 2007-08 fiscal year, GVSU’s presence meant a $592 million economic impact in Kent, Ottawa and Muskegon counties. Of that, students’ expenditures were an estimated $157.6 million.

Grand Valley officials also point out the university helps stem brain drain from West Michigan, with about half of GVSU’s nearly 70,000 alumni living or working in the three-county area.

Det the full story on mlive.com

One of Chevorlet’s shining muscle cars hits dealership floors today and it was unveiled on the WZZM 13 Morning News

Berger Chevrolet’s Jim Casey showed off the car this morning and talked about its features. Watch the video for the details. The V-6 version gets 29 MPG yet still offers muscle with more than 300 horsepower. The V-8 version, while sacrificing some mileage spits out more than 400 horses.

The Camaro starts around $22,000 and could go up to nearly $40,000. At many dealerships, there is already a waiting list for the car.

Check out the vid at WZZM.com