Soony Saad, in this Dearborn Press & Guide photograph, holds his 2009-10 Gatorade National Boys Soccer Player of the Year trophy Thursday at Dearborn High.

The best high school soccer player in the United States is right here in our city of Dearborn. The award to Dearborn High senior Soony Saad as the Gatorade National Boys’ Soccer Player of the Year was made Thursday in the gym of the high school.

The Dearborn Press & Guide reports that Saad, who won the state coaches association Mr. Soccer Award at the end of last season, was selected the best of over 380,000 high school boys who played the game nationwide.

The paper says that Saad joins an elite list of athletes honored by Gatorade over the past 25 years that includes Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, former Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith, Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James, New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and current Tigers pitcher Rick Porcello.

“What’s astonishing is the company he’s with,” Dearborn High coach Sean Gordon told the Press & Guide. “He’s recognized by coaches all over the country and he’s on a fast track to great things.”

Saad scored a state-record 76 goals last year and finished his career with 172, which is also a state record.

Saad told the Press & Guide he plans to attend the University of Michigan in the fall and join his brother, Hamoody, on the Wolverines soccer team.

 (Source: Friends for the Dearborn Animal Shelter press release)

The Friends for the Dearborn Animal Shelter announced its 17th annual Critter Invitational Golf Outing takes place on Monday, June 7th. New this year, golfers will be able to choose which course they prefer to play in support of homeless animals while enjoying a round of golf.

The options include the Jack Nicklaus designed private TPC of Michigan or the four star public course, Dearborn Hills. It is a best ball scramble format on both courses. 

“Offering the Outing on two courses this year gives supporters a chance to choose which one suits their skill level and wallets best,” said Elaine Greene, executive director of the Dearborn Animal Shelter.

The festivities include 18 holes of golf, cart, dinner and cocktails, silent and live auctions and all the usual Outing goodies. All participants begin at Dearborn Hills for registration and TPC golfers are then shuttled to their course. Dinner and auctions take place at Dearborn Hills for all golfers.

Some Detroit sports celebrities are expected to join in the day to lend their “paws” in support of the Dearborn Animal Shelter. Detroit Lions quarterback Drew Stanton and long-snapper Don Muhlbach, as well as Detroit Tigers great Dan Petry, are among the sports figures scheduled to attend. The event is emceed and chaired by WJBK Fox 2 sports director Dan Miller for the fifth consecutive year.

Golf packages are $300 per golfer at the TPC (11am start) and $150 per golfer at Dearborn Hills (noon start). Non-golfers can share in the fun by purchasing tickets to the Critter dinner for $75 each. Sponsorships are still available as well, ranging from $250 to $5,000 offering sponsorship visibility on both courses. More information is available on-line at www.DearbornAnimals.org

About The Friends for the Dearborn Animal Shelter

The mission of the Friends for the Dearborn Animal Shelter (FFDAS) is to provide loving care and sanctuary to animals, encourage adoptions and reunions, and promote respect, responsibility and compassion for all animals. Animals are the heart of our work.

Visit the site to donate on-line or call the Dearborn Animal Shelter at 313.943.2697. The Shelter is located at 2661 Greenfield Road in Dearborn; they accept cash and wish list donations in person as well. More online at www.DearbornAnimals.org

The former home of automotive supplier Plastech (and my former junior high school, Adams, and before that Dearborn High School) is now on the sales block for a starting bid of $390,000.

Known as the Dearborn Atrium Office Center, the building at 835 Mason between Garrison and Morley, traded in 2005 for $19 million.

Traded in 2005 for $19 million, bidding for the Dearborn Atrium begins at $390,000.

As the listing for the buildings states: “This is an excellent opportunity for a user or investor to buy a quality office building at a substantial discount.” In this case, “substantial” seems like an understatement.

With its nearby parking deck, you could see this building being transformed into downtown lofts or how about student housing? There are lots of possibilities for this building that was built in 1916. The former school was completely renovated to the shell in 1994 and the listing says warranties still exist from those renovations.

The property consists of two three-story office buildings and a covered parking structure consisting of 90,774 square feet and 307 parking spaces. The two office buildings consist of 133,001 net rentable square feet and 154,104 square feet of gross building area and sit on 4.09 acres. The listing states that the average household incomes are more than $76,000 within one mile of the property and and the population is more than 103,000 people in a three mile radius.

Let the dreaming begin . . .

Dearborn residents should expect to see their new trash and recycling carts delivered to their households beginning June 1, with the expectation that all households will receive the new carts by July 5, Dearborn officials say. 

All Dearborn households will receive two containers: gray for trash, green for recycling.

Some 65,200 carts — all made in Grand Rapids, Michigan — will be delivered to every household at the curbside. A complete packet of information will be inside the new carts.

Residents are being asked to store the two, 96-gallon carts in an appropriate place and not to use them before their collection day the week of July 5.  Residents need to continue to use their existing trash cans and recycling bin until that week.

Dearborn will be mailing to the 32,600 homes it collects trash from each week a post card in the next two weeks as a reminder that the carts are on the way, and to not use them before the week of July 5. 

Trash days will stay the same for every household. Curbside recycling will continue to be on trash days, but residents will recycle every other week on their trash days. Each recycling cart will have information posted on them so residents will easily know which week to recycle.

While some may balk at not having recycle pickup each week, it is worth noting that the city currently has just a 30 percent participation rate in the current recycling program. With the new larger cans and the fact that plastics from 1 to 7 can now be recycled, the city expects the participation number to increase.

We’re not ones to usually pay attention to beauty pageants, but when Miss Michigan is from Dearborn and competing in the Miss USA competition, well, then it becomes more relevant.

Rima Fakih

So congratulations to Rima Fakih who on Sunday was crowned Miss USA and at the same time helped shine a positive light on Dearborn for the many national media outlets covering this story. (Worth noting that at the time of this post, Rema Fakih was the number one most popular search on Google. The Internet search engine called the volume of searches for Fakih as “volcanic”.)

The Detroit Free Press had a nice feature story about Fakih in Saturday’s edition. You can read that story by clicking HERE.

Born in New York to Lebanese-American parents, and raised in Dearborn with her parents and her younger brother, Rami, Fakih is a graduate of St. John’s Preparatory Catholic High School. The 24-year-old earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in economics with a minor in business administration from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Well done Rima and best of luck on your next pageant step, the Miss Universe contest.

(Source: Arab American National Museum press release) 

Michigan Radio and the Arab American National Museum will present a panel discussion on Monday, June 7, titled Covering the Middle East: A Conversation with the BBC. This event will feature correspondents from the BBC, and will examine issues related to news reporting in this region, and how the BBC balances the demands of its global news audience in covering issues affecting the Middle East and the Arab World.

Covering the Middle East: A Conversation with the BBC will feature panelists from three different areas of the BBC. Lukman Ahmed (BBC Arabic Washington Correspondent), Liliane Landor (Head of the Middle East Region, BBC World Service), and Anne Koch (Deputy Director, BBC World Service English Networks) will each bring their unique perspective on news coverage in the Middle East to this discussion. Michigan Radio News Director Vincent Duffy will moderate.

This event is free and open to the public, and will begin at 7 p.m. Monday, June 7 in the Lower Level Auditorium at the Arab American National Museum, 13624 Michigan Ave. in Dearborn.

 As the world’s leading international broadcaster, the BBC World Service delivers news to diverse audiences worldwide in 32 different languages. In addition to providing news on Middle Eastern events to listeners in the U.K. and the U.S. through its English language service, the BBC also provides an Arab language service that reaches listeners throughout the Middle East and the globe. This provides the BBC with a unique perspective on issues related to this area and the Arab World.

 “Michigan Radio is pleased to present this discussion of an issue that will be of great interest to many people in our community,” says Michigan Radio News Director Vincent Duffy. “With the large concentration of people of Arab descent in Southeastern Michigan, having access to accurate, informed news coverage of the Middle East and Arab World is critically important.”

 This event is an extension of Michigan Radio’s recent “Muslims in Michigan” project, in partnership with the University of Michigan Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies.

 Lukman Ahmed joined BBC Arabic as Chief Washington Correspondent in July 2007. He covers all U.S. stories for the BBC Arabic network on TV, radio and online – from politics to economy, space, medicine and technology. Lukman has interviewed top U.S. officials including President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and covered the 2008 U.S. presidential election. He has also reported the U.S. military campaigns from Iraq and Afghanistan. Lukman has also presented the BBC Arabic flagship programmes, Open Agenda and The Fact-finding Commission.

 Before joining the BBC, from 1998 till 2003, Lukman worked as the Washington Correspondent of the Middle East Broadcasting Centre, MBC, covering breaking news stories such as the 9/11 attacks. He then joined Al-Arabiya TV as Senior Washington Correspondent, covering key U.S. news stories, U.S. relations with African countries and policies in the Middle East. In these roles he has interviewed key U.S. political and government figures. Lukman started his journalistic career in 1987 as a news anchor for Sudan TV, before moving to the U.S. in 1995.

 As Head of Middle East Region, BBC World Service, Liliane Landor is editorially and managerially responsible for TV and radio broadcasts as well as future media in Arabic. Landor has been working at the BBC since 1989, when she joined the BBC French service. She presented a news program in French before presenting Europe Today in the News and Current Affairs department of BBC World Service. Hers was one of the first non-British voices on air.

 Two years later, Landor moved on to Newshour, BBC World Service’s flagship news and current-affairs program. When The World Today started, Landor became one of the program’s core presenters and subsequently the program’s editor. In January 2002, she joined the senior management team as Editor, Programs in News and Current Affairs, eventually becoming Head of BBC World Service News and Current Affairs in 2006 – responsible for all the BBC World Service News and Current Affairs programs in English.

 Anne Koch is the Deputy Director, BBC World Service English Networks & News. Previously she was Commissioning Editor News, Current Affairs and Business at the World Service and prior to that, the Executive Editor of Radio Daily Current Affairs at BBC’s Radio 4. She joined the BBC in 1987 after working as a journalist in Canada and then with CBC’s London Bureau. Her first job with the BBC was as a Producer with The World At One and the PM programs. She went on to become the Deputy Editor of The World This Weekend and in April 1992 she joined The World Tonight as the Editor. During her career at the BBC, Anne has also worked on more than 100 documentary programs and series on a wide range of topics.

Vincent Duffy has been news director at Michigan Radio since May 2007. In his first year of leading the Michigan Radio news room, the news team won more than three dozen national, regional and state awards including a national Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for a monthlong series investigating education in Michigan. He has worked as a reporter and news director at public radio stations in Illinois and Ohio, and hosted public television programs in Akron, Ohio. Duffy has won five national Edward R. Murrow awards for his radio journalism, as well as a Sigma Delta Chi award, a National Headliner award, many other national, regional and state awards.

*********

Michigan Radio is a National Public Radio news station and the state’s most listened-to public radio service. Michigan Radio, a service of the University of Michigan, serves Detroit and southeast Michigan at 91.7 FM, West Michigan at 104.1 FM, and the Flint area at 91.1 FM, and is online at www.michiganradio.org. Michigan Radio features

BBC Newshour at 9 a.m. weekdays and BBC World Service from 10 p.m.-5 a.m. weekdays and 10 p.m.-6 a.m. weekends.

 The Arab American National Museum documents, preserves, celebrates and educates the public on the history, life, culture and contributions of Arab Americans. It serves as a resource to enhance knowledge and understanding about Arab Americans and their presence in this country. The Arab American National Museum is a project of ACCESS, a Dearborn, Michigan-based nonprofit human services and cultural organization. Learn more at www.arabamericanmuseum.org  and www.accesscommunity.org

The Arab American National Museum is a proud Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Read about the Affiliations program at http://affiliations.si.edu 

The Museum is located at 13624 Michigan Avenue, Dearborn, MI, 48126. Museum hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Monday, Tuesday; Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Admission is $6 for adults; $3 for students, seniors and children 6-12; ages 5 and under, free. Call 313.582.2266 for further information.

Contrary to recent reports, Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., says the project to build a new Ann Arbor to Detroit commuter rail project has not been “indefinitely delayed.”

In a column in today’s edition of the Dearborn Press & Guide, O’Reilly says that while it is true that “due to insufficient project funding, a regular commuter service of four weekday and three weekend trains per day will not begin at the end of October 2010” it is moving along as part of a phased program.

Mayor John B. O'Reilly, Jr.

“The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) have been managing a complicated planning process on the Ann Arbor to Detroit line for several years due to Greater Detroit’s unproven record on passenger rail transit,” O’Reilly says in his column.

“A demonstration project for three years was conceived to determine if we could meet the requirements to eventually receive larger allocations of federal transit dollars through a program called “New Starts.”

“Thanks to our congressional delegation and our committed partners, more than $30 million has been raised toward beginning the service. This includes improving the rail lines, leasing locomotives, refurbishing commuter rail cars like those used in suburban Chicago, and improving the station infrastructure at five locations including Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Wayne/Westland (link to Metro Airport), Dearborn and Detroit.

“MDOT and SEMCOG have identified another $50 million needed to complete the commuter rail demonstration. So, it has to be a phased program that begins with special events, and grows to commuter service moving from four to eight to eventually fifteen trains per day.

“By building the service piece-by-piece the region will begin to see how rail transit can work as an alternative to private automobiles to meet some of our transportation needs. Studies and real life have proven that an auto only system is not a sustainable model for modern American cities.”

Mayor O’Reilly’s complete column in the Dearborn Press & Guide can be read by clicking  HERE

(Source: City of Dearborn press release)

Everyone is invited to kick off the summer season while enjoying Big Band Music from the 1930s and 40s at the Henry Ford Centennial Library on Sunday, May 23.

The free concert, performed by the 15-piece band, The Missing Links, will take place 3-5 p.m. inside the auditorium.

The concert is sponsored by the Friends of the Library-Dearborn. For more information, please call 313-943-2330.

The Dearborn City Council is inviting residents to attend a public hearing this Thursday to get an overview on the city’s proposed fiscal year plan.

The May 13 meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall.

The administration is expected to present an overview of the proposed budget and members of the public will have a chance to provide input.

The adoption of the budget is scheduled to take place at 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 17 in the Council Chambers.

Dearborn’s Deli on the Avenue, located on Military just north of Michigan Avenue, will now offer outdoor seating for its patrons.

Deli On The Avenue, located on Military, just north of Michigan Avenue, was finally Okayed to offer outdoor seating.

Back in December, we told you about Vicki Barndollar’s new Deli on The Avenue and some of the hurdles she faced in opening her new shop on Military. Well, it appears she has cleared those and is moving forward.

“We have received the approval from the city’s Design Review Committee and the Zoning Board to place tables outside the Deli,” Barndollar tells us. “I see everyday that the West Dearborn area is in such need of rebuilding and I want people to know that is what I am trying to do. I tried to create a quaint garden like atmosphere outside for the customer’s enjoyment along with enhancing the area around us.”

On those 80 degree days with the lightest wind and no clouds in the sky, nothing is better than enjoying your favorite food and beverage while seated outdoors. Dearborn could certainly use more of that because it helps make the city appear alive. It’s just unfortunate that traffic on Michigan Avenue is freeway fast. Kind of puzzling why the speeds aren’t more strictly enforced, particularly between Nowlin and Brady streets. But that’s a discussion for another day . . .

As for Barndollar and her Deli, she has planted flowers, placed tables and park benches outside of her shop to the rear of her building.

“I want people to see that even though I am only a small little place tucked in the corner, I will do whatever it needs to get people in and dress up our vacant downtown district,” Barndollar says. “No matter what hurdles I have had to deal with, I still love coming here everyday, and the great people we have met, and the new friends we have made. Don’t get me wrong, it has been difficult but I look out at the (Sacred Heart) church everyday and pray I stay open for another day.”