Palmer School update offered
To the editor:
We are having a wonderful time
reminiscing about our old school
days but this month we helped Gail
and Dudley Smith of Dexter, for-
merly of Canton and Belleville cel-
ebrate their 55th wedding anniver-
sary,.
By the way, it was also Gail's
birthday. As we sang Happy
Birthday to Gail, Tom Newhart
said, “It's my birthday also,” so we
sang the song again, louder the sec-
ond time.
Tom and wife, Carol, live in
Augusta Township now, but are for-
merly of Canton.
At the luncheon, there were 11
former students that went to the
Palmer School on the northwest
corner of Geddes and Beck roads.
Sometimes, wehave 22 ormore.
We still meet at Jonathon's
Restaurant on Michigan Avenue at
I-275. Our oldest attendee is Kelly
Wheatley at 93 years young.
BonnieBerg,
Canton
Editor's note: Palmer School was
a one-room schoolhouse and the
alumni meet the first Wednesday of
everymonth at 12:30.
Museum seeks sale donations
To the editor:
The City Wide Garage Sale is
just days away, Aug. 25-28, and John
Juriga would like to inform every-
one that he is still eagerly accept-
ing donations for the sale.
Please dig deep through your
garages, attics, and storage areas
for any items. Furniture, toys,
antiques, appliances, tools and
baby items are welcomed dona-
tions. No clothing or computers,
please. Contact Juriga at (734) 395-
8612 for donation information.
This sale will support Belleville
Area Museum's programming
schedule including a Civil War
Sesquicentennial Commemoration
series in 2012.
Volunteers are still needed to
work the yard sale. Please call the
museum at (734) 697-1944 to sign
up.
KatieDallos
Director, Belleville AreaMuseum
Literacy Day planned
To the editor;
The Josie Odum Morris
Literacy Project (JOMLP) is
pleased to announce that it will
host its 2nd Annual Literacy Day
Extravaganza on Saturday, Sept. 17,
from noon until 4:30 p.m. at the
Booker T. Dozier Recreation
Complex, 2025 Middlebelt Road in
Inkster. The event is free and open
to the public.
Co-sponsored by Target
Department Stores, Comerica
Bank, and Detroit DTE Energy, the
2nd Annual Literacy Day
Extravaganza features an exciting
day of pep rallies, guest speakers,
book readings, free new book, poet-
ry and backpack giveaways to the
first 200 school-age children to
attend the event, on-site registra-
tion for literacy tutoring services,
and other fun activities that cele-
brate literacy for youths, adults and
families.
A special performance by
Learning Express will kick off the
day that features keynote speakers
including Rebecca M. Thompson,
director of the national young adult
leadership development organiza-
tion, Young People For (YP4); City
of Inkster Mayor Hilliard L.
Hampton III; Superintendent of
Inkster Public Schools Dr. Paula
Daniels and Mr. Lorenzo George
Odum, brother of JOMLP inspira-
tion, Josie Odum Morris. Book
readings by Detroit authors Debbie
Taylor, Cheryl Lynn Pope, Dara
Nicole Walker, Danielle McGuire
and Karen S. Williams will also be
featured.
Also on tap for the day will be
JOMLP's 2011 Literacy Advocate
Awards, an event that recognizes
greater Detroit organizations that
have promoted literacy and con-
tributed to community improve-
ment over the past year. The
awards presentation will be hosted
by Mix 92.3 FM radio's, Tracy
McCaskill and co-hosted by Terohn
Mathis, a Taylor Public Schools 5th
grader who wrote the prize-win-
ning entry for JOMLP's Reading
Rocks! contest. Terohn's winning
entry noted that “reading rocks” for
him so much that it encouraged
him to create a scrapbook on the
Newberry Medal award-winning
book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of
A
SSOCIATED
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EWSPAPERS OF
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ICHIGAN
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AGE
6
A
UGUST
18, 2011
Students
learning
more than
music
Here's a great idea.
Say thank you to the police and fire personnel who put
their lives on the line daily to ensure your safety and that of
your community.
What a concept.
Our neighbors in Van Buren and Sumpter townships and
the City of Belleville will gather from noon until 2 p.m. at the
Open Arms Lutheran Church on Sept.10 to do just that. The
Public Safety Chaplains have organized the Public Safety
AppreciationDay andCommunity PigRoast (yes, the name is
unfortunate) as a way to show their appreciation for all these
people do on a daily basis for the community. In these ugly
financial times, it seems that the police and fire departments
are too often those facing cutbacks or being criticized for the
wage and salary levels.
That's a real shame. Is there downtime on these jobs?
Sure, but there's downtime on just about any job. But when
these people really go to work, they face situations and
eventsmany of us couldn't even imagine.
Appreciation? Well, there isn't too much of that when a
screaming drunk throws up all over you as you are trying to
get him out of a smashed up car he just rammed into a tree.
The guy smacking his wife and kids around because he's had
a little toomuch frustration andway too little success in find-
ing a job and fighting off bank foreclosure of his home isn't
very appreciative when these officers have to arrest him,
either. Try putting a drugged-up, steroid-enhanced cretin
swinging ham-sized fists at you into a holding cell----then
claim police officers are paid too much. Or pay a visit to the
widowand four kids of a patrolman killed by a speeding vehi-
cle as he tried to help a stranded motorist and tell her that
police benefits areundeserved.
Most of us cannot imagine and probably could not endure
the mindless boredom of waiting on a drug stake-out or the
moral implications these first responders face inmany of the
day-by day, instant-to-instant decisions theymake routinely.
Let's face it folks, we mess up on the job and there may be
some consequences, sometimes even serious ones. These
people mess up and somebody could easily end up dead.
Remember, these are the people who are running INTO the
burning building to try to save our loved ones and their pos-
sessions. These are the guys who will put themselves
between us and a crazed gunman when they don't know us
froma sack of doorknobs.
They are a special breed of people, thesemen andwomen
who opt for this kind of public service. They sure don't do it
for themoney.
While their salaries are often criticized, it's usually by
those who have no real concept of the incredible stress these
people face daily and routinely.
Sure, not every call is life threatening or dangerous. The
They are a special breed of people,
these men and women who opt for this kind of
public service. They sure don't do it for the money.
”
Public Safety Appreciation Day is long overdue
The sweet sound of success can
be heard throughout the somewhat
empty halls at Wayne Memorial
High School following the
announcement that a video pro-
duced by the music departments
won a $20,000 prize fromBigLots.
We think that is terrific. What is
even more terrific is that the sin-
cerity and real feeling that is so
prevalent in this program was rec-
ognized and rewarded by strangers
and those with no parochial inter-
est who voted for these students. If
you haven't seen the video, it is
worth your time to access
www.biglots.com/lots2give. That's
where you will hear Wayne
Memorial High School principal
Valerie Orr introduce you to the
Wayne Zebra Music Family. Then,
the teens and the instructors take
over.
Watching the genuine feeling
and emotion of these young people
is intoxicating. There isn't a false or
contrived note in the entire pres-
entation. Their feelings, their
words are so real and so obviously
heartfelt, one cannot help but
empathize with the joy, the focus
and the discipline these young
peoplehave for this program.
Big Lots deserves some credit,
too, for offering to help a school
program, based on the video they
prepared and submitted and the
number of votes cast by the public
through the internet. The Wayne
students were so far above the fray,
voting for themcould have stopped
altogether two weeks before the
deadline, and they still would have
won, hands down.
That's the kind of impact their
instructors have on these students.
While the teens love the program,
they love it because of the incredi-
ble devotion of the educators who
are behind it. It is that feeling of
doing something together, of
accomplishing something, of creat-
ing something beautiful together,
like music, that bonds these stu-
dents to the program and to each
other.
The diversity of students in the
program speaks for itself. They
cross every boundary, but they are
all bound by their love of music, as
one put it, “the universal language
understood by all.” If there is any
doubt, anywhere, of the impor-
tance of these programs in music,
art, drama and the other creative
cultural studies that used to be
offered routinely in schools, one
need only to watch the effect this
Wayne program has on the young
peoplewho belong to it.
Andrew Connor, a district
employee who shot the entire
video in one day, credits that feat of
technology with the incredible
focus anddiscipline of the students
in the program.
See
Music
, page 7
See
Letters
, page 7
Letters
See
Day
, page 7