by Justin Gibson | Aug 4, 2017 | Community, Vicksburg
A Matter of Balance classes will once again be offered by South County Community Services and the Area Agency on Aging. Classes will run all through September on Tuesday and Friday, September 5 through 29 from 1 -3 p.m. at the Vicksburg United Methodist Church at 217 S. Main Street.
Skilled teachers, Aileen Greanya and Lynn Pruitt-Timko will be helping adults who have a fear of falling. They teach strategies to overcome and reduce falls, achieve better balance, exercise regimens and identifying other impediments that lie around the house that could cause a fall.
There is a pre-registration requirement and a $15 materials fee for those who enroll. Call 269-649-2901 or 269-373-5221 and ask for Marilyn Reed to answer any further questions.
by Justin Gibson | Aug 4, 2017 | Community, Vicksburg
Don and Betty Braymer drink a toast to their 72nd wedding anniversary.
By Sue Moore
“Ours is a love story,” exclaims Betty Braymer of Vicksburg about their 72nd wedding anniversary. “I met Don Braymer at a USO dance in St. Louis in 1943 on Valentine’s Day. I was all dressed up in red, white and blue. He had a car and told me he didn’t dance very well. ‘I’ll teach you the fox trot’ I told him and in only a few months we were engaged.”
They were married on August 8, 1945 in St. Charles, Mo., after he got home from his Navy stint overseas. “We just eloped and my parents weren’t very happy about it. We moved to his hometown of Kalamazoo where Don took a job with Upjohn after the war. He worked in the motion picture division as he had been a photographer in the Navy. He retired in 1976 at the age of 55 to do free-lancing.” The couple traveled all over the world together to do motion pictures and shoot advertising products for large corporations. He built three houses for the couple to live in, first in Comstock, then Gourdneck Lake and finally in Vicksburg on Sunset Lake the last 30 years.
For 15 years upon full retirement they volunteered with Prime Time Players who entertained at the Coover Center in Kalamazoo. “It was a very rewarding experience,” Don said. “We got way more than we gave. We even got to see the inside of nursing homes and decided to stick it out here in our own home as long as possible.” He is 96; his wife is 92. Both are in reasonably good health.
She likes to write poetry and took a second place in the Schoolcraft Tournament of Writers contest in 2015. She has an electric typewriter, no computer to compose on, but texts to her children and grandchildren and is on Facebook. Don reads USA Today to keep up with what is going on in the world.
They have had four children, Don Allen Braymer, of California; David Braymer, deceased; Kathleen MacDonald, Boyne City; Bill Braymer, of Ann Arbor, who is the proud owner of Laurentide Winery in Suttons Bay, where the Braymers expect to celebrate their 72nd anniversary. There are 13 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.
“The sun has shined on us brightly,” Don said. “Sure, there has been some sadness in our lives but there is in everyone’s lives. It’s all a miracle now.”
by Justin Gibson | Aug 4, 2017 | Community, Vicksburg
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The invasive freshwater crustacean found in Sunset Lake.
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Representatives of the Kalamazoo Conservation District and the Kalamazoo Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area strike team responded to the reports of red swamp crayfish being found on Sunset Lake.
By Sue Moore
What is a southern red swamp crayfish delicacy doing in the waters of Sunset Lake? That’s what got a local resident questioning his discovery of their presence in July near the lake. He called the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to report this invasive species find but at first they didn’t quite believe him.
“I’m pretty familiar with crayfish like we find around here,” said Mike Oswalt. He was driving by Bridge Organics on Washington Street and spotted one in the road along with a couple of young boys who had them in their sights too. He proceeded to do some research on what was meandering across the road and reported it to Seth Herbst of the DNR. “That’s more likely to be the native white river crayfish because they also have raised bumps on their claws and the red swamp crayfish have yet to be detected in Michigan,” Herbst responded. A few hours later he received a call from Tim Delaney who lives on Sunset Lake with a report and a photo that corroborated Oswalt’s find.
Red swamp crayfish, also known as Louisiana crayfish, are deep red in color with bright red, raised spots covering the body and claws. They have a black, wedge-shaped stripe on the top of the abdomen. Between 2 and 5 inches in length, these crayfish resemble miniature lobsters. They are native to the Mississippi River drainage and the Gulf Coast and are the popular “crawfish” or “crawdads” used in southern cooking, said a DNR press release.
It didn’t take long to bring in a flotilla of experts to search for this invasive species that poses a danger to the shoreline integrity of the lake. They burrow into the shore and can cause major erosion. Plus, they are like a garbage disposal in devouring ants, other small crayfish and invertebrates that live in the lake, Herbst said to an MLive reporter and the TV cameramen from Channels 3 and 8 on July 20. He and others from the Conservation District and the Cooperative Invasive Species Management team were all in Vicksburg trapping as many as they could find over a four-day period.
Herbst said they captured a total of 60 of the red swamp crayfish variety just in Sunset Lake and its two ponds. A report of a finding in a Novi, Michigan retention pond came in two days after Oswalt’s report. He dispatched the DNR team and they reported finding 111 there. “They are crawlers and like to move overland, through vegetative and rocky shorelines. It rained heavily the week before they were found in the road so Herbst speculated that was what drove them from the shoreline.
How they got to Vicksburg is anybody’s guess Herbst said.
Nearby the pond across from Bridge Organics, Vincent Douglass who will be 10 on August 16, said he has been finding them for several years by his grandparents’ home on Mill Street. He even handed over three he found that day to Herbst while he was being interviewed by Channel 8.
The team from the DNR also searched Barton, Gourdneck and Austin Lakes during their week-long visit and said they didn’t locate any specimens in these waters.
by Justin Gibson | Aug 4, 2017 | Community, Vicksburg
Rubin Rosalin, instructs young golfers about the proper grip. Photo by Brian Freiberger.
By Brian Freiberger
With birds chirping during a cool summer morning in early July, the Indian Run Golf Club hosted its annual Junior Golf Clinic for all ages. The four-day camp taught safety and proper technique. It also taught the children to have fun, according to Ruben Rosalin, Indian Run junior golf director.
Instead of hitting golf balls right away, Rosalin had them hitting tennis balls with their clubs to one another to teach hand-eye coordination. Once participants were learning how to hit, it was time to teach them the proper stance and swing: balanced with bent knees, a straight back and naturally dangling arms that allows proper space between the ball and the player.
“I like teaching. I’ve always enjoyed it and when they asked me, I said why not,” said Rosalin, who has been teaching the program for four years.
Each day participants learned how to use irons, drivers, and putters leading up to a three-hole round of golf on the course to finish the clinic. “They liked it a lot. For some kids, it’s a good experience to get them on the actual golf course and teach them the rules and prepare them for a league,” said Rosalin.
Every Monday in July there was a junior golf league. “Kids who do the league remember more of the basics, and they refer back to the lessons,” said Rosalin.
The clinic also focused on consistency, accuracy and power.
First was tic-tac-toe, where the player hits the ball into squares on a patterned blanket. Following that was a target 30 yards away, requiring players to stay within a 10-foot-wide fairway while approaching the target. Last was a station from which participants chipped balls onto a designated spot on the green.
Kyle O’Brien, a senior at Vicksburg High, assisted Rosalin. For him, teaching the game is a passion. “Now that I have enough experience, I want to help out the younger kids and teach them a game that I love.”
Indian Run Golf Course is located at 6359 RS Ave East, Scotts. A second session of the clinic will be held August 14-18 starting at 10 a.m. For registration contact (269) 327-1327.
by Justin Gibson | Aug 4, 2017 | Government, Vicksburg
By Sue Moore
A new police chief is in the works for the village of Vicksburg, according to Village Manager Jim Mallery. He received 49 applications, narrowed them down to five to interview, then to two for final interviews with a recommendation to come to the council at its next meeting.
“The caliber of the candidates was very impressive,” said Trustee Tim Frisbie. He and several other citizens were invited to participate in the interviews. Eric West, the long-time police chief, was not offered a contract once his duties were up on June 30.
At a special meeting in July, council members approved a five-year contract for Mallery. It contains a 2.2-percent pay raise, a small increase in an allowance for truck and phone expenses and a severance package should the need arise. Mallery initiated a change to his pension plan by asking the council to contribute to a defined contribution pension plan instead of the defined benefit plan that the village had contributed to for prior village managers, thus saving the village several thousand dollars per year.
Work on the new water main that is to run the length of Boulevard Street on the west side of the village was slowed when a gas line was hit slightly by the construction crew. It was immediately fixed by Consumers Power and will not hold up the end-of-July completion date, Mallery said. The village will be conducting flow tests once the valve is turned on before water is piped to residents in the west-side housing developments.
by Justin Gibson | Aug 4, 2017 | Community, Schoolcraft, Vicksburg
Brian Freiberger at the Fulton Memorial Day parade.
By Brian Freiberger
Ever wonder how we end up where we are right now?
I think that every day because six months ago, I would have never guessed I would be spending my summer writing for the South County News, just from a simple hand-shake and hello.
It was late January at the Michigan Press Association Convention in Grand Rapids. While listening to a lecture about digital media, I peeked behind my shoulder and saw a silver haired woman whom I didn’t know at the time. I’m normally a reserved person who doesn’t speak to a lot of people, but I decided to go introduce myself to her. She turned out to be Sue Moore. Little did I know that five-minute conversation would lead me on a three-month adventure that would shape me as a person and as a journalist.
The conversation with Sue led to my arrival in Vicksburg as an intern for the newspaper.
For the first time in my life I lived on my own hours away from family and friends in a foreign place where I knew absolutely no one. When I arrived, I was welcomed with kindness and open arms from the community.
I’m from the village of Onsted in Lenawee County, but I never learned how it operated until I came here. I’ve covered village council, school board and other various meetings. It has been an eye-opening experience to see how decisions are made that affect a community. Sometimes these meetings are boring, but the people who are in these positions invest hundreds of hours serving the community. I recommend that people attend these meetings, and see how you can help the community in a positive way.
One thing about both communities that stood out to me the most is the amount of volunteering that occurs. I believe these communities are special because of the selflessness from people not caring who gets the credit, but ready to sacrifice for the betterment of the community.
I don’t know where this road we call life is taking me, but I see myself in a few short years working for a media publication traveling the world writing and photographing what I see. Although there are many steps that follow this, South County has shown me what it takes to be a quality journalist in today’s world.
But for now, I’m going back to Olivet College to apply what I’ve learned here on the journalism craft. I have another immediate goal – to help my team capture a third consecutive Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association football championship.
