Behind the Headlines

Here is the final information on the Hawaii pension board trip. I’ve tried to post this several times, but had run into technical glitches each time.

Let’s see if this works: Bah!

Let’s try that again :

—- Here’s a look at the expenses by the numbers:
—- Conference registration fees
—- City: $2,670.00
—- County: $8,010.00
—- Total: $10,980.00
—-
—- Hotel fees
—- City: $7,187.26
—- County: $12,014.80
—- Total: $19,202.06
—- Average hotel cost per person: $1,920.21
—- All county pension board members paid: $1,716.40 per attendee (with the exception of William Sisk and Henry Lievens who paid their own hotel, air and expenses.)
—- City pension members costs:
—- Kansier: $3,123.68
—- Paisley: $1,961.54
—- Pinchoff: $2,102.04
—-
—- Airfare
—- City Total $2,220.76
—- County Total $4,731.82
—- Grand Total $6,952.58
—- Average: $695.26
—-
—- Kansier: $794.66
—- Paisley: $703.04
—- Pinchoff: $723.06
—- Charron: $705.10
—- Colpaert: $643.73
—- Elmore: $661.09
—- Jones: $690.60
—- Londo: $691.10
—- Morgan: $670.10
—- Thompson: $670.10
—-
—- Food, valet and parking
—- City total: $454.73
—- County total: $546.05
—- Grand total: $1,000.78
—- Average expense: $125.10
—-
—- Kansier $109.74
—- Paisley $297.59
—- Pinchoff $47.40
—- Colpaert $69.36
—- Elmore $208.76
—- Jones $39.25
—- Londo $151.25
—- Thompson $77.43
—- Charron, Sisk, Lievens and Morgan submitted no expense report.
—-
—- Additional expenses; (tips, mileage)
—- City total: $100
—- County total: $0
—- Kansier $66.00
—- Paisley $7.00
—- Pinchoff $27.00
—-
—- Related charges on city credit card (not already included in total)
—- City of Monroe Employee Retirement System Comerica credit card: $834.78
—-
—- Back to the city - spouse fees (already taken out of totals)
—- Total: $441.00
—- Kansier $200
—- Paisley $100
—- Pinchoff $141
—-
—- Amount reimbursed to attendee
—- Total: $8,426.11
—- Kansier $2,796.38
—- Paisley $2,697.63
—- Pinchoff $2,932.10

I’m still clarifying some of the information, but a story should be coming in the next few days.

From: www.mcsweeneys.net
BY BENJAMIN SUMLIN
- - - - * Texas shows up to the party already drunk with the girlfriend nobody likes.
* Texas partied too late, asks to copy homework.
* Texas asks if it would be “cool to hook up with your ex.”
* Texas has a habit of spending more time than needed in the bathroom.
* Texas bogarts the remote just before Lost.
* Texas demonstrates little respect for “personal space.”
* Texas finds and eats the little snack cakes you’ve been hiding in the back of the pantry.
* Texas needs you to cover rent “just until I get back on my feet, man, I swear.”
* Texas brings up an anecdote about his recent colonoscopy.

I came across this while investigating potentially awkward situations for a story I’m working on. I’ve been a longtime fan of McSweeneys. When I saw this I just had to share it.

“Listen here, Crack Pipe. Obviously you didn’t and you can’t use Piggy McGee because I’ve already used Piggy McGee.”

I’m not entirely sure what this was about. Though, I think Piggy McGee was in reference to a photo of a farmer washing his pig.

My assignment for tonight: Go out and talk to the crowds at the football games, see what the draw is, how games starting in Aug. before school even starts affects the experience, etc.

As I rolled up on the SMCC game and people were taking things out of their cars, the clouds blew in. It was a mass exodus, people jumping back in cars, some waiting it out and others just taking off. A few drops were starting to fall.
Since I couldn’t then talk to people and it looked like the storm might be newsworthy, I headed back to the office. But to avoid the traffic snag, I took a side road. I ended up stopped along the way, pausing to marvel at the high speed winds. When the wind really kicked up I saw leaves and other debris start swirling before me. It made me feel puny. I knew I had to get out of there.

Then the rains hit. Biblical rains.

As I was driving I had to swerve to avoid a branch that was flying through the air. When I got back to the office and bolted inside, I was soaked after 30 seconds in the rain. The scanner was going crazy - downed lines here, a possible structure fire at Meijer, a tree blocking the road there.

The reports are still filtering in about the downed lines and trees and damages to homes, the supposed fire at Meijer appears to have been nothing - at least that’s what dispatch is saying.

Now, I wait. For the official counts of DTE and Consumers on how many customers are out of power, from the final tally of downed lines and such, on number and nature of emergency calls.

I guess that means the football assignment is delayed as are the games.

“I’m going to buy a cow farm just so I can name it ‘I love you for heifer.’” said one slap-happy co-worker toiling away on 4-H information tab.

There have also been several amusing comments made about getting and giving goats and segmenting goats as well as a thorough discussion of non-dairy versus dairy.

“We desperately need help. We urge people to please donate blood immediately, particularly if you are type O-negative or O-positive.” So said a spokesperson for the Red Cross.
Donations of all blood types are needed immediately.

Blood transfusions are used for trauma victims, heart surgery, organ transplants, women suffering from complications during childbirth, and patients receiving treatment for leukemia, cancer or other diseases. If not for the commitment of volunteer blood donors, the lives of the patients would be in jeopardy.
For information on open blood drives, call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE (1-800-448-3543), or visit the Western Lake Erie Region web site at www.givebloodtoday.org
To donate blood you must be at least 17 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds, be in general good health and provide a valid photo ID upon donation.

Do you give blood regularly? I used to attempt it, but apparently my veins are difficult to tap into. I also had the image of them forgetting about me and the bag swelling and swelling while I become dehydrated of all liquids. As realistic as that is - maybe it’s time to get back to the needles.

By Paula Wethington

I grew up in a city where little girls didn’t typically dream of becoming Miss America. The preliminary contest in my hometown had an off and on production history, and I had only one friend who entered. And I had met Kaye Lani Rafko Wilson of Monroe, Miss America 1988, only once when I covered an event she spoke at in Ohio.

So the Miss America glitz and glamour were new to me when I moved to Monroe in early 2000.

I quickly learned the Miss Monroe County pageant was a big part of this community’s traditions and history – especially when I saw the reaction Mrs. Wilson got during an event I covered in Temperance.

One of my friends, Nancy Chorzempa, was a contestant for Miss Monroe 2000.

I told my daughter, “Come on, let’s go cheer for Nancy and see what this is all about.”

We bought our tickets, and a program so we could follow along. Someone gave us a noisemaker to cheer on our favorite contestant. My daughter and I did our own critiques of the talent routines and stage presentations.

But watching the pageant was like watching a sports game where I wasn’t familiar with the rules. When the finalists were announced, I knew there had to be more to picking the queen than what the contestants did on pageant night. What was it?

In recent years, I noticed that whomever served as Miss Monroe County attended an increasing number of charity events and autograph appearances. Dozens of girls were participating each year in the Little Miss Monroe County contest. And the teen division split off from Little Miss Monroe County in 2006 — so now there were three pageants.

I thought it was an appropriate time to do a story beyond the annual profiles of the candidates and queen.

But 2006 was too busy of a summer for me to take on a project. I waited until this spring to make the story pitch.

When I got asked, “What are you going to focus on?” I said, “I don’t know yet.”

My goal was to talk to as many people as possible and see what happened.

During the summer, I filled three reporter notebooks with notes from interviews and pageant rehearsals. The pageant board gave me two binders with pageant instructions and contestant profiles. And to get a feel for the local pageant’s history, I read through piles of clippings in our newsroom library.

The scene that I describe at the ending of the main story that will be printed in Sunday’s edition of The Monroe Evening News happened on technical rehearsal night.

While the contestants were in dress rehearsal, I was sitting at a computer, working on a story draft.

During the pageant production, I stayed back stage. I joked around with the stage crew and talked to the contestants as they prepped for stage appearances.

“Are you having fun?” several people asked me.

Yes, I had fun that night.

Then again, it wasn’t my daughter who stood on that stage, seeking a crown.

I was just waiting to get a quote for the newspaper.

By Paula Wethington

Does your non-profit organization or club need volunteers? As a reporter for the Community Page at The Monroe Evening News, I get a lot of questions from local organizations on how to advertise their need for volunteers. This is the time of year when many community projects get started, and clubs resume meeting after their summer breaks. So we’re right at the start of recruiting season for members and volunteers.

Here are some volunteer recruiting tips that seem to work well in this community:

• If you send a “volunteers wanted” notice to The Monroe Evening News’ Community Page, we can run it one time. You will want to provide as many details as you can about the requirements and date, time and location for training and assignments. An announcement that “an orientation session will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday Aug. 14 and volunteers can expect to be on duty once a month” will get a better response than “call this phone number for details” or “we can only provide this service if volunteers step up and help out.”
• Use the Internet as much as possible to post details about your organization such as who the contact people are, what your mission is, dates of special events, and what you are seeking in terms of donations and volunteer hours. A director of a local organization whose activities are frequently listed in Community Page told me her organization’s web site reduced the number of phone calls they get from the public because the most frequently asked questions are answered on the web.
• Provide both an e-mail contact and phone number for the public, in order to stay in contact with both the computer-savvy and those who prefer “real person” communications. You may be surprised at how the responses arrive. I was a co-hostess for a social event this summer, and all of the reservations that came to my attention arrived via e-mail. I do have voice mail, so I would not have missed a call. I can only assume people “didn’t want to call at a bad time.”
• Come up with a list of assignments or projects that junior high or high school students can do for you. Local students often need to volunteer a certain number of hours to meet requirements for confirmation ceremonies, a class or a club; and high school students are particularly looking for leadership experience to list on college or scholarship applications. You’ll get a better response from students if you offer to sign their community service paperwork, allow for flexible schedules and encourage carpools.
• Start recruiting several weeks in advance of your need if you will rely on classroom teachers, scout troops or youth clubs to recommend or provide student volunteers. There could be a lot of logistics for the officers and teachers to work around — such as permission slips, carpools and test schedules.
• Get your request listed with 211 / First Call for Help service at the United Way of Monroe County. This program is designed to help local residents make connections with local non-profits, whether they need assistance or are able to offer assistance. The Helping Hands volunteer recruiting page that runs once a month in The Monroe Evening News is coordinated through the United Way. For information, call 242-1331 or 211.
• Encourage your existing and new volunteers to bring a friend or family member along to an event or training session. Word of mouth is a very effective advertising approach. And you might attract interest from people who have concerns that volunteering on your project will take away time they to spend with friends or family.

By Paula Wethington

Here’s Miss Monroe County 2006 Melissa Cousino’s blog “And All that Jazz”

Well, maybe not, but it’s interesting to see part of an outsider’s perspective.

Check out what Jack Schultz, author of Boomtown USA and authority of economic development in small towns, had to say about his recent visit to Monroe.

Read his musings here.

By Paula Wethington

Anyone who was in Southeast Michigan on the afternoon of Thursday Aug. 14, 2003, remembers the “big blackout.” This was a lengthy multi-state blackout that started in Ohio, and spread to the Detroit area and several other states to become the nation’s largest power outage.

Power availability in Monroe County was unpredictable – some people never lost electricity, while others were in the dark for three days.

Mercy Memorial Hospital canceled some surgeries. The Monroe Evening News had difficulties printing the next day’s edition. Local hotels and restaurants were already full with visitors because of a NASCAR race scheduled for that weekend at Michigan International Speedway. It was a struggle to put gas in the car, get cash out of the bank machine, or even make a phone call depending on your phone equipment.

The blackout happened a few hours before technical rehearsal for the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant. There were just two days before 12 women would take the competition stage at Monroe High School auditorium. And the afterglow reception, which is a fundraiser for the program, was scheduled immediately after the pageant at McGeady’s Town Pub.

In the tradition of live theater, the decision was made that the show would go on.

Dione Oerther, pageant co-executive director, remembered the frantic plans that the board members and volunteers made to save the pageant. “It didn’t matter what we had to do,” she said. “You had girls who spent all summer getting ready.”

The backup site was the high school’s football stadium, where the sunlight would be the spotlights. Portable toilets were ordered. The production crew tried to think of every detail.

The power came back on at the high school campus about noon Friday. While that did solve the immediate problem, there wasn’t time to arrange a complete run-through of the show.

The production would take the stage without final cues and timing worked out.

Bobb Vergiels, a pageant volunteer whose real-life job is public information officer for DTE Energy, put on an electric company hat when he walked onto the stage to announce the start of the show.

“Somebody called Edison?” he said.

That night, Jill McCormick won the title of Miss Monroe County 2003.

“And you better not put that as an ‘overheard in the newsroom’ on the blog,” said person, following a very scandalous statement.

What do you think it was?

This comes to the newsroom from Kellogg’s of Battle Creek:

Think you’re a Crazy Good storyteller? NEW Pop-Tarts Splitz toaster pastries are encouraging kids to get their creative juices flowing this summer with its Crazy Good Kid Creative Writing Contest. Children ages eight to 12 will have the chance to share their passion for Pop-Tarts by submitting an essay about the latest addition to the Pop-Tarts toaster pastries lineup. The only requirement is that stories include at least one mention of the new Pop-Tarts Splitz. Beginning August 13, 2007, original essays can be submitted with parental permission online at www.poptarts.com/splitz.shtml.

By Paula Wethington

If you were in the audience during the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant Saturday at Monroe County Community College, you saw several other young women and girls in the audience with their own sparking crowns.

This is a tradition called “visiting queens,” and their introductions to the audience count as pageant appearances for the title-holders. In the Miss Monroe County program and many other pageant systems, any public event that a queen or princess attends where she wears her crown is called an appearance. That event is then included in her permanent pageant record of community service, platform promotion and publicity efforts.

Miss Monroe County 2006 Melissa Cousino was credited with 150 appearances during her “year of service.” That’s a huge number, considering the fact she attends Michigan State University and has to include the commute time for any appearances she does back home in Monroe County.

She’s not the only queen with a busy day planner. Looking back at recent local queens as examples, whomever serves as Miss Monroe County will make more than 100 appearances while she owns the title. This might be riding in a parade, reading stories to younger children, attending a charity event as a VIP guest, serving as a celebrity judge for another pageant, hosting a major fundraiser, … basically anything the queen and the pageant directors might agree on.

Some of them are mandatory appearances. For example, the Little Miss Monroe County contestants were provided with a list of eight required appearances that the winners will make during the coming year. But at the Miss Monroe County and Miss Monroe County Outstanding Teen Level, many events are arranged on the queen’s own initiative in promoting the pageant or her platform.

The first time I saw a Miss Monroe County queen doing an appearance (other than Miss America 1988 Kaye Lani Rafko Wilson’s celebrity visits) was when my daughter volunteered at a spring 2005 fundraiser for the Humane Society of Monroe County.

I learned a couple of days ahead of time that Miss Monroe County 2004 Kelly Smock was scheduled for an appearance. I told my daughter she should get Kelly’s autograph and pose for a picture with the queen since that was the custom during such events. We did get a picture and autograph, and we spent a lot of time talking with Kelly in between visitors and customers at the fundraiser.

“Do the queens have groupies?” I wondered after seeing more publicity about their appearances.

Well, yes. Those fans sit in the audience on pageant night! And sometimes the queen’s appearance does bring more people to an event.

But I’ve learned that what happened at the Humane Society fundraiser is pretty typical: my daughter and I were at the event anyway, so we made sure to visit the queen while we were there.

Now what’s really interesting is the word-of-mouth that happens afterward. People will save the photos and autographs and say to their friends, “I met Miss Monroe County at such-and-such event and …”

Which means both the pageant program and the charity event are part of the chit-chat in the community for some time afterward.

by Paula Wethington

I’ve spent a lot of time this summer with the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant contestants to see what it’s like behind the scenes as they get ready for the production.

Yes, we do have some coverage in today’s Monroe Evening News and at www.monroenews.com. But that was on a quick deadline and it took a photographer with a digital camera, and two reporters on scene (one who had to leave early and get final results via cell phone from the other reporter) to pull those logistics together.

There will be more stories, so watch the paper and our web site for more peeks behind the scenes.