By Sue Moore
Has anyone ever seen John Gisler, the Kalamazoo County Commissioner who represents the south county area, in any item of apparel other than the shirt with the red, white and blue stars and stripes emblazoned on it? This reporter got to wondering if he ever takes it off long enough to launder it since he appears at almost every meeting I attend.
The mystery is solved, upon my asking him a most personal question at the Schoolcraft Township board meeting in January. Turns out he has 11 identical shirts like this, all given to him periodically for gifts by his family members. I’m thinking he must not be too hard to shop for at Christmas and birthdays.
Thieves Break into Vicksburg Businesses
Four stores were broken into in downtown Vicksburg in one night in January, including Shear Beauty, Geek Genius, McCallum Accounting and Brian Pitts Insurance at 123 S. Main. Cameras appear to track one person at about 4 a.m. walking from Pitts’ office north to McCallum’s building on the corner of Main and E. Prairie, but the figure has not been identified as yet. Police Chief Scott Sanderson says the case is open with several leads being worked diligently. The thief got away with a Chromebook computer from Pitts and iPad tablet from the beauty shop. Geek Genius was hit the hardest with some of their gear and petty cash taken in the break-in.
Academy of Rock Musicians
Schoolcraft High School band members are also students at the Kalamazoo Academy of Rock (KAR). They have been selected to participate in a show with Matt Giraud, an artist from Kalamazoo who finished 5th in the 8th season of American Idol. The students are John Chapin, Elsa Petersen and Chance Evans.
The spring KAR show is March 21 at the State Theater in Kalamazoo. Giraud will be headlining that show and working with many of the KAR students, having them perform on stage with him.
Leeanne Seaver Edits Just Released Book
Leeanne Seaver, a 1977 Vicksburg High School graduate, moved back to Vicksburg about seven years ago and immediately became involved in volunteering in her hometown. She is a professional writer who has contributed several articles for this newspaper. She is a close friend of Kathy Forsythe, who writes a monthly column for us. Both belong to a local writers’ club.
Seaver is celebrating the recent book launch of Slings & Arrows, a book by David Bland. It is about how toxic narratives perpetuate poverty in Indian country. She did a lot of rewriting and contributing to the book as a developmental edit/editor. Read: literary midwife she exclaimed! “I’m so proud of it . . . it feels like “part of the solution, not just more of the problems in Indian Country,” she said.
Two more of her books she is working on are launching this spring—one a full write/full credit and another co-authored. Both are business-genre type books, Seaver said.
Census Takers
The 2020 census that will be taken of every person in the United States, is having troubles hiring enough people as census takers, even at the rate of $20.50 per hour in this area. Getting counted is important for our local governments in several ways. Federal dollars flow down through the states and municipalities based in part on the head counts of everyone living here. The numbers also determine how many members of Congress each state is given. If our population has declined, we stand to lose a seat at the table in Congress.
The first round of counting will be online, which is a huge change from the old days of someone actually coming to the door and asking how many people live in a house. The census takers will actually fan out to find those haven’t supplied their information online. They will try to find more people that might be hiding from fear of being counted. They promise that everyone’s data is secret and will not be shared with any other federal agency.