Weekend dog walks in Shores, Park
will benefit local animal causes

Animal lovers will have two opportunities to help their friends this weekend.

On Saturday (June 6), Paws in the Park will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and benefit the Grosse Pointe Animal Adoption Society. Held in Windmill Pointe Park, the event will include music, a costume contest, police K-9 training demonstrations and other activities. A special treat for dogs will be a walk up and down the length of the Windmill Pointe Drive median. read more...

Memorial Day observances are
a somber start to summer

Once upon a time, the last Monday in May was known as Decoration Day, and families spent it placing flowers on the graves of soldiers who died fighting America's wars. 

Today, it is called Memorial Day and it is known better as the first weekend of summer, although some still spend it honoring those who made the supreme sacrifice in service to their country.

The Grosse Pointe War Memorial's annual observance went off without a hitch under perfect weather that allowed a flyover by the Selfridge Air National Guard. read more...

Woods plucks competition
in spring birding challenge

Having Rosann Kovalcik enter a Grosse Pointe bird-counting competition is like having LeBron James in a slam dunk contest with the Brownell 8th-grade boys basketball team.

When the sun came up for the Grosse Pointe Audubon Society's fourth annual bird-counting competition May 2, there was Kovalcik–owner of Wild Birds Unlimited on Mack, arbiter and expert on all things relating to our feathered friends–with her husband Martin Blagdurn already smack in the middle of the contest.

Before they even left home the couple spotted a Carolina wren at a feeder in their back yard in the Woods, which is, of course, a wonderful haven for birds. Carolina wrens are somewhat uncommon in these parts, according to Bill Rapai, the local Audubon Society president whose Grosse Pointe City team had won the previous three annual contests.

Kovalcik also knew where in the Woods she could find a pine siskin, ever rarer, because her customers tell her about the critters they’ve spotted. That helped the Woods team–in their first try at this competition–to a winning score of 64 points from 55 species seen before the closing noon bell.

The Farms finished second with a respectable 55 points and the Park came in third with 50 while Rapai, the lone representative of the City, tallied 44 points. Rapai, no slacker, was out searching for eastern screech owls at 5:15 a.m. None were to be found at Neff Park, but he did spot a common loon. The Farms team of Chris Chamberlain and Mark O’Keefe was the only one to see a ruby-throated hummingbird and the Park team of Mike and Judy Florian was the only one to see a least flycatcher. The most unusual bird was spotted by the winning Woods team—a sandhill crane. All in all the birders saw 79 species.

Zen Accordion

For more than 25 years, the Rev. John Corrado has been holding forth from the lectern of the Unitarian Church, that modernistic sanctuary across from Grosse Pointe City Hall.

The longest-serving Protestant clergyman in the area has also happily volunteered to speak at the Grosse Pointe Ecumenical Men’s Breakfast on several occasions. If you haven’t caught his act at one of those venues in the past quarter century it is your loss, as he plans to retire later this summer.

Corrado is an accomplished musician, composer and arranger. He won a citation from the West Virginia governor's office years back for his work on human-rights legislation. His ministry has taken him to more than 30 states and his colleagues call him “the 25-year man.”

Corrado can speak intelligently on subjects ranging from the fear of Islam and meditations for our troubled times to hymn writing and Zen and the art of the accordion. His tale of growing up in Cleveland and taking accordion lessons and how it affected his later life is heartwarming and fun. Corrado obviously doesn’t take himself too seriously, but takes his mission of supporting good works and deeds very seriously.  read more...

GP students find fulfillment,
high honors in SOC service

Two Grosse Pointe high school students are a walking rebuttal to the idea of teenagers as self-involved, irresponsible slackers. Demesia Glasco, a sophomore at North, and Elizabeth Hyde, a South senior, received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for their commitment to community service last November. read more...