Radio show host and comedian Steve Harvey presents his no-nonsense, foolproof guide for women on understanding men during a book signing June 10 at Borders in Dearborn. Even if you decide not to purchase the book, listening to Harvey will be a hilarious night. Worth attending for that alone.
Henry Ford Community College’s 18th annual Mike Adray Memorial Golf Tournament provides funding scholarships to HFCC for deserving local high school students.
Morning and afternoon golf packages are available. The golf package includes 18 holes of golf, breakfast, lunch, dinner and evening activities, including wine tasting, entertainment and a silent auction.
The morning golf package is $200.00 and the afternoon golf package is $250.00. Call 313-845-9889 or www.adraygolf.com or email adraygolf@hfcc.edu
We have talked a lot on these pages about the many different elements that give Dearborn that homey feel even though it has a population of some 100,000 people. We can thank Dearborn’s strong neighborhood associations as being one of the key contributing elements that keeps Dearborn feeling special to so many of us who call this city our home.
Runners hit the streets Saturday in Dearborn Hills for the neighborhood's 2nd annual 5k Fun Run. For more photos from the race, click the photograph above.
Nowhere was this more evident than on Saturday morning along the tree-lined streets that comprise what is known as the Dearborn Hills neighborhood. On the streets were nearly 100 residents and non-residents, some running and others just watching, who showed up before 9 a.m. to take part in the Dearborn Hills Civic Association’s 5k Run. It was the second time for the run and the number of attendees this year compared to year-ago were up dramatically.
But to achieve a successful neighborhood event requires a lot of dedicated people to donate their time, along with some help from local businesses, which was the case here. Kearns Brothers, Panera Bread and the Dearborn Hills Golf Course, all great Dearborn businesses and neighbors, stepped up with donations and help. So did the Dearborn Police.
A big thanks goes to Dan Webster, my colleague on the Dearborn Hills Civic Association board, and his three daughters (avid runners themselves), who did the bulk of the heavy lifting to keep the Association’s 5K run on track, along with many other association members. And an extra thanks goes to Rob Seeley, our president, who carried this event over the finish line when bureaucratic obstacles began emerging, nearly stopping the race before it could even begin.
With the success of the second race under our belt, you can be sure there will be a third one, even bigger and better than this one around the same time next year.
For a list of the runners and their race times, click HERE
Each year students in Dearborn High School’s video program (WDHS) produce a full length feature video. This year is no different and tonight at 7 p.m. at the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center the world premier of “Dare to be Amish” will be shown.
Dearborn Mayor John B. O'Reilly, Jr. shaved his moustache for his role in the student video, Dare to be Amish.
The video is a story of a simple, sincere, Amish teenager that is banished from the Amish community. He then stumbles upon the unexpected world of cheerleading at his new high school, against the wishes of the squad.
Tickets can be purchased at the door for $7.
Moviegoers will recognize many Dearborn locations in the video, including Greenfield Village, who allowed the students to tape on their grounds. There also is an appearance by Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr. who plays Judge Yoder, the leader of an Amish community, who serves as a kind of mayor, judge and priest.
To keep to the Amish look, O’Reilly, who has a theater background, shaved his moustache for the part.
“The film class is really a great program and the students do a wonderful job each year with their movies,” O’Reilly earlier told the Dearborn Press & Guide. “I’m glad to have this opportunity to be part of their efforts. I know I’ll get questions, but it’s all worth it.”
For more about the feature video, click HERE.
Nowlin nearly lands starring role in upcoming Hollywood movie.
Dearborn schools nearly landed a starring role in an upcoming film being directed by Rob Reiner, aka “meathead” from his days in the sitcom “All in the Family”.
The G-rated movie called “Flipped” is about second grade friends growing up together who then struggle trying to understand the awkwardness they begin to experience as feelings for each other grows stronger. Filming for the movie begins this summer in Michigan.
Production teams were in town last week looking at Nowlin Elementary and O.L. Smith Middle School. After looking at several Dearborn schools on three separate occasions, the production team fell in love with Nowlin, located near Grindley Park and O.L. Smith, immediately adjacent to the elementary school, because the schools so perfectly fit the time period for the movie.
Smith was built in the early 1950s, Nowlin in the 1940s.
But when Reiner came to town to make the final decisions on locations last week, he chose a school in Saline because it was closer to another location in Ann Arbor where a good portion of the movie will be filmed. Production crews simply did not want to make the drive between a movie set in Ann Arbor and one in Dearborn, school officials were told. (Now we know why he was called “meathead” for all those years.)
The good news is that the production team said they would keep Dearborn schools at the top of their list of potential future movie locations because the buildings are so well maintained.
Corporal punishment has long been banned from Michigan schools but it apparently is having some impact on more than just the rear ends of some elementary school students in South Carolina. A reader sent this article to us from a recent issue of Newsweek.
For those of you in your late 30s, you may recall or perhaps experienced first hand similar treatment in Dearborn schools. At Dearborn’s Adams Junior High it was the “Shader Persuader”, a wooden paddle that science teacher Shader wasn’t afraid to use on his 7th grade students. Another gym teacher at Adams would use the cord of his whistle on a wet bathing suit to get students inline. We can’t recall how effective it was but we do know that students acting up in class were rare events.
But would a crack on the behind today bring about discipline or a lawsuit?
Below is the Newsweek article:
Eric Adelson
NEWSWEEK
May 4, 2009
The wooden paddle on principal David Nixon’s desk is two feet long, with a handle wrapped in duct tape that has been worn down by age and use. He found it in a dusty cabinet in his predecessor’s office at John C. Calhoun Elementary in Calhoun Hills, S.C., where Nixon has been the principal since 2006. He has no idea if the old principal ever used it, but now it sits in plain view for all visitors to see, including children who have been dismissed to his office. As punishment for a “major offense,” such as fighting or stealing, students are told to place both hands on the seat of a leather chair and brace for what Nixon calls “a whippin’.” Before he begins, though, he sits the child down for a quiet talk about why he, or she, is in trouble. He tries to determine if a deeper issue, such as a problem at home, might warrant a meeting with a counselor. If the child shows remorse, Nixon will often send him or her back to class without a spanking. Otherwise, he makes sure he is calm, and he makes sure his elbow is still. Then he delivers “three licks” to the child’s rear end. If the child is a girl, then a female administrator does it. Some of the kids cry. Some are silent. Some want a hug. And after the child is sent back to class, still stinging, Nixon sits alone in his office and thinks about what the child has done, and what he has done. “If I could burn that paddle in my stove,” Nixon says, “I would. This is the worst part of my job.”
Before Nixon took over “John C,” student behavior had gotten so bad that one teacher described it as “chaos.” She eventually quit in disgust, pulled her own child from the school, and moved to a different one 45 minutes away. John C is located in a rural stretch of South Carolina near the Georgia border where all but one of the major textile plants have closed, and where the leading local employer is the school system. Nearly 90 percent of the kids at John C live below the poverty line. When Nixon went to his first PTO meeting, only about a dozen parents showed up at a school with 226 students. He still has trouble reaching many families by phone because they can’t afford to put down a deposit on a landline. And yet Nixon has managed to turn John C around. It recently earned three statewide Palmetto awards, one for academic performance and two for overall improvement-the school’s first such honors in its 35-year history. Not everyone agrees with his methods, but most parents and teachers will tell you he couldn’t have pulled off such a turnaround without his wooden paddle.
Still, the mere fact that it works hasn’t made spanking kids any easier for Nixon, who’s no fire-breathing traditionalist. He’s 31, a brownish-haired beanpole with a soft-spoken but determined manner. Married, with an 8-month-old daughter, he taught agriculture to high-school students for six years but had no prior administrative experience. He studied animal science at Clemson, served as state president of the Future Farmers of America, and raised 50 head of beef cattle on his ranch. In 2006, a family friend called about an opening at John C. The school, he heard, was “kind of in bad shape,” but he took the job anyway.
For the rest of the story, click HERE.
Councilman Doug Thomas
So Dearborn Councilman Doug Thomas wants to “keep ’em guessing” on whether he decides to run for mayor or for his current city council seat. At least that’s what he told the Dearborn Press and Guide in its April 29 edition on why he pulled petitions for both positions.
Thomas has until 4 p.m. on May 15 to make a decision, the deadline for candidates to decide.
From where we sit, our guess is that it appears Thomas is setting up his exit strategy from Dearborn politics altogether.
In recent years, Mr. Thomas has had a poor attendance record as a councilman. So much so that the Dearborn Democrats club at a meeting in August 2007 discussed a recall effort because of it. The councilman was spending more time at his Florida home than he was at his elected job in Dearborn or his home here, which he has been trying to sell.
Let’s face facts. Running for mayor against sitting Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., is a non-starter. O’Reilly likely will be mayor until he decides not to. He is just that strong.
So why might Mr. Thomas be considering such a run? Is it a way to go out with a bang, running for the top job in City Hall even though a loss is inevitable? We think it might be. He was elected to his fifth term as a Dearborn councilman in November 2005 and running for a sixth term won’t be a cakewalk.
There could be as many as 26 people running for seven council seats this election. If Dearborn voters head to the polls this November with the mindset that major change is needed in our city, no sitting councilmember will have it easy.
This should be interesting race to watch.
Make your way down to the Dearborn Glass Academy each Wednesday to take part in Coffee Nights from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. weekly.
A place to gather and spread good cheer while supporting a local business. Watch live glassblowing, meet with your friends, and hang out with family. Bring in your glass repairs, ask the questions you always wanted to ask about glass, and see the school in action.
The Studio Gallery will be open to showcase glass merchandise for both sale and enjoyment.
Coffe Nights take place from 4-9 PM Wednesdays at the Glass Academy, 25331 Trowbridge in Dearborn. For more information, call 313-561-4527 or visit www.glassacademy.com