By Sue Moore
To honor my dad, Meredith Clark, I’m calling this column “On the Corner.” He and my mom wrote and published the Commercial-Express for 26 years. The column “On the Corner” appeared every week on the left corner of the newspaper’s front page from 1947 to 1973 when they sold the paper.
He usually wrote it the last minute before the weekly deadline and a good share of the news he wrote about came from his daily trip to the coffee shop at Marjo’s, the then-revered hangout of the town fathers.
His vision was to support the schools and Village Council, but hold the elected officials accountable by writing the truth as he saw it. His writing was usually chatty, folksy and sometimes more like Will Rogers than the professional journalism I thought it should be. Nevertheless, it was the best read item in the newspaper, based upon surveys we would do every year.
Sports in Schoolcraft and Vicksburg
Our two communities celebrate four winning high school teams who have captured conference titles as we go to press. Vicksburg’s girls volleyball and cross country have snared the Wolverine Conference titles, and Schoolcraft’s volleyball and football teams have taken top honors in the Kalamazoo Valley Conference. It is especially important to this new newspaper to provide the opportunity to showcase our student athletes in story and pictures on the printed page.
Introduction of the South County News Writers
Let me introduce to our readers some of the contributing “scribblers” for this newspaper whose writing is featured in this issue. Doctor David Schriemer of the Vicksburg Family Doctors practice has written gripping stories about survivors in our last three issues. The people he has chosen to profile have a rich story to tell land he has deftly written about their saga, showing the very human side of their lives.
Kaye Bennett, a professional’s professional, also enjoys writing about special people who have experienced challenges to overcome by telling of their lives and adversity in a warm and wonderful way. She spent many years doing public relations work for the Upjohn
Company and then Bronson Hospital, having come from the Kalamazoo Gazette staff after earning a nursing degree. Go figure.
Morgan Macfarlane from Schoolcraft is herself learning the trade as a high school senior who is dedicated to becoming a journalist. She began taking journalism courses at Western Michigan University as a junior and is now editor of the electronic high school newspaper called the Screaming Eagle. She has a bright future and we are glad to give her a chance to listen and learn about her community of Schoolcraft.
John Fulton has volunteered to be our church news specialist, honing in on what’s happening in devotionals around the area. He is especially interested in this as he and his wife, Karen, have
started a branch of the Kalamazoo Family Valley Church in Battle Creek. Although he is a Vicksburg area-resident, he serves the new church as a lay minister. He put in his years of selling real estate with his father J.R. Fulton, while battling a rare form of cancer that was diagnosed when he was 14. He’s a survivor at the ripe old age of 52 and is hoping to keep the disease at bay for many more years.
Leeanne Seaver is a newcomer to the area after 25 years of living in Colorado and Virginia, leaving Vicksburg upon graduating from high school in 1978. She specializes in technical writing and is an accomplished photographer. Her journey has largely settled on advocating for the deaf since she has a son who is severally impaired but now is a successful college student.
Mari Smith is covering Vicksburg sports this fall including volleyball, soccer and tennis. She has an abiding interest in education with twin daughters just graduating last year and a son several years before that. She and her husband own a construction company, plus she volunteers at Indian Lake School, as a reading instructor.
Durti Morton is new to Vicksburg, having recently moved from Pittsburgh to marry Dr. Dustin Morton, a local chiropractor. They are the revivalists of the Haunted House that proved to be so successful for the Chamber of Commerce the last few weeks.
Lastly, there is one unsung hero who makes us all a bit better with her editing capabilities. It is Sandy Minger, our fearsome proof reader, with the mighty red pen. We truly appreciate her specialty that she learned while working for Jackie and Warren Lawrence at the now defunct Commercial-Express.
