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Plan on joining the fun during Tale Spinners story time on Mon. Feb. 8 from 10 – 10:45 a.m. for a special visit by Story Artist, Jenifer Strauss. There will be a blizzard of winter tales and fun during this story time special event for pre-school aged children and their caregivers!

A former environmental educator and elementary teacher, Jenifer’s storytelling style is dynamic, heart-warming, and sometimes outrageous! Children will be tickled with her humor and engaging personality and delighted with a simple craft to remind them of their special story time.

For more information, please contact the library at 387-2125. Come join in on winter fun happening at the Munising Public Library.

MSU Extension e-Commerce educational workshops for local businesses

To all new and existing businesses a workshop to expand your customer base through internet sales: Workshops will be held in Munising at the MSU Extension office on Wednesday, February 10, 12:30 – 3:30pm and repeated in the evening at the Munising Public Library at 5 – 8pm.

Contact: Jim Isleib
Alger County Extension Director
906-387-2530

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MSU Extension Offers Business Workshop: “Strategies for Michigan ’s Upper Peninsula Rural Businesses Using E-commerce and Experiential Marketing”

To assist new and existing businesses, MSU Extension is offering a workshop on strengthening competitive advantages of rural businesses with e-commerce and experience economy strategies. Participants will learn how economic value has evolved from “commodities” to “goods and services”. Training will include:

* Introducing experience economy strategies
* Adding value to rural businesses using experience economy strategies
* Aligning experience economy strategies of the business and e-commerce website
* Assessing experience economy strategies of the business
* Assessing experience economy strategies of the e-commerce website

Workshops will be held in Munising at the MSU Extension office on Wednesday, February 10, 12:30 – 3:30pm and repeated in the evening at the Munising Public Library at 5 – 8pm. Preregistration and a $10 registration fee are required. The program instructor will be Julie Mechiori, Iron County Extension Director and Director of the Iron County Economic Development Corporation. This program is supported by a 2008 National e-Commerce Extension Initiative Program Implementation Mini-grant awarded to Iron County MSU Extension.

Similar workshops are being offered across the U.P. Contact the Alger County MSU Extension office at 387-2530 or msue.alger@county.msu.edu to register or for more information.

Tues,  Feb 09,  2010 Negaunee Girls @ Munising Girls 7:30PM

Tues,  Feb 09,  2010 Munising Boys @ Big Bay De Noc Boys 7:30PM

AM 1400 – WQXO would like to explore producing a Munising Arts show, one that includes a Munising Arts Calendar, Art Events Followups, Information, Interviews of local artists and art enthusiast (from authors. musicians and photographers to architects, clothing designers,  graphics artists, and everybody in between…the whole range of the art scene in Munising and Alger County and Upper Michigan to some degree).  Perhaps, as part of the mission, the show may discuss  arts education in Alger schools from time-to-time.   The show, every so often, could also do some “live from” coverage.

First, of course, we need to see if there is an interest in this initiative.  We’re sure our listeners would appreciate it.  We suspect that there might be some sponsors (co-sponsored public service programming is very low cost).  And we’ve heard from several local artists who think this is a good idea.

So, now we are trying to explore the practical matters, talk with more local artists and organizations, find out if this idea really will fly.   Since we’re kind of new to this, we are open to all suggestions.

Our first thought was a 90-second or three minute or five minute daily segment re-running 3-4 times a day, or  perhaps a half hour show on the weekend.  Since we’d co-sponsor this and do most of the other technical and sponsor-related work, it comes down to finding a reliable group of people – or an organization of people – that can credibly tackle this subject.  Coverage that connects with listeners.

Among the many question that the would have to be answered before going to the next phase:  who might provide the voice of the show?

This kind of public service show can be pretty simple to produce but hard to maintain.  A steady, long-term relationship with local artists and the community is absolutely essential for this to work.  When people with up-to-date information and motivation are at the helm, it is doable, especially in a small community-base radio environment that WQXO is trying to build into.

We have pretty good feelings about the possibilities, but it takes time to build a good show.  The real trick is just to get started, then fine tune as experience grows and feedback comes in.  Hopefully the show will impact the community by informing, educating, and entertaining our listeners throughout Munising and Alger County.

Obviously if we can find motivated, knowledgeable volunteers that can make the show relevant and enjoyable for Munising listeners, time will provide other opportunities to spread the produced segment wider.

We’d post the show online — first as a streaming item, then later (as show matures) as a pod-cast (for specialty shows, we often find online listeners to exceed our on-air listener ship due to the growing worldwide audience online and online pushes made by media outlets such as ours).  Finally, we hope to have the show segment eventually run daily on our WPIQ FM station in Manistique, which is soon to go to 35,000-50,000 watts and cover from Schoolcraft to Menomonee to Escanaba and Marquette County.

If you or your organization would like to contribute ideas on this topic, please call 387-4000 after 1p any weekday.  We return 100% of our calls that leave a message, phone number and name.

One of the songs we played this morning was the classic “Harper Valley PTA”.  The song was written by Tom T. Hall and tells the story of a widow who receives a letter from the PTA of her daughter’s school district chastising her for “wearing her dresses way too high” and “Runnin’ round and goin’ wild,” and that she shouldn’t be “raisin’ her little girl this way.” And it was signed by the secretary, Harper Valley PTA.

Well, the song is a classic  and James and I had discussion related not only to the song but also the movie that starred Barbara Eden. Barbara, also of “I Dream of Jeannie” fame was every young males “dream”. (Yes, I said it again “dream”.) Our conversation led me this morning to Google Barbara and we learned that she was 45 when the movie was produced.

I think that I remember the details of the movie so well because I saw it at a drive-in movie theater. That’s something the kids of today will never have the joy of experiencing. This is what Munising needs…a drive-in movie theater. We would always ride in the back of the pick-up truck, laying down of course because it must have been illegal to ride in the bed of a pick-up even in the ’70’s. My mom and dad would tell us to “keep your heads down until we get there”. We would bring our own popcorn & pop, mom would even make some “chef-boy-r-dee” pizzas to take with. We would watch the movie from the bed of the pick-up…being eat’in alive by mosquitos. No matter how hot the summer in northern Kansas was, the ride home was always cool in the bed of the truck.

Oh well, that’s what memories are good for. And this memory is brought to you by Barbara Eden and a man’s memories of growing up with such timeless beauties as Barbara. By the way, Barbara, born in 1934, is still beautiful at 76 years of age. That’s what they call timeless.

~ Leif

* 2/5-2/7…”The Super Bowl Of Rock & Roll Weekend.” To celebrate the big game, we’ll spotlight the greatest Rock & Roll acts of all-time. Lots of songs by artists like Elvis, The Beatles, The Four Seasons, Bobby Darin, The Stones and more, all weekend long.

Okay, my wife doesn’t get why I want to post this, but …

Munising Frost

Photo by Sandy Richardson, Pestering by Todd P

Spaghetti Dinner Benefit for Lil’ Ned to help offset Medical Expenses

Everett Nettleton (5 1/2 mos.), son of Chris Nettleton and Kora Mills, had open heart surgery on February 3rd. To help provide assistance for medical expenses the Moose Lodge is hosting a Benefit Dinner on Thursday February 18 from 5-7 PM.

Tickets will be sold at the door ~ Adults $6, Children $3

**Takeout will be available**

For more information contact Dan or Robin McCollum at 387-1825 or visit http://babynettleton.blogspot.com

Donations may be made in Everett’s name at Citizen’s Bank

~Leif

Fri, Feb 05,  2010 Munising Girls @ Westwood Girls 7:30PM

The 2010 Ice Fest – Feb 5-7th — Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Munising Michigan.

Schedule of Events
Friday, Feb 5th
10 am  Rentals available at Sydney’s
6 pm  Climbing Social sponsored by Scarpa
730 pm  Slide show – Ben Clark
Saturday, Feb 6th
8 am  Courses pick up gear
9 am  Demo equipment check out
9 am  Courses meet upstairs at Sydney’s
10 am  Demos at the Curtains
4-7 pm  Demo equipment check in
7 pm  Climbing Social sponsored by
La Sportiva
7::00 pm  Slide Show – Rapheal Slawinski
8:00 pm Slide Show-  Barry Blanchard

Sunday, Feb 7th
8 am  Courses pick up gear
9 am  Demo equipment check out
9 am  Courses meet upstairs at Sydney’s
10 am   Demos at the Curtains
2-4 pm  Demo equipment check in