The singers in the Carolyn Mawby Chorale have the voices of angels! The chorale music group is currently busy preparing and practicing for its much-anticipated performance, the Carolyn Mawby Christmas Concert, which will be held at 4pm on December 4 at First Presbyterian Church in Downtown Flint. The group shared its passion for chorale music and its special harmony of voices for many years under the direction of Carolyn Mawby, who left this earth in April 2014 after a long battle with cancer.
It is a great feat to be happy while dodging life’s crazy punches; this is something that we all have in common.
Some young adults like to hang out with friends at the lake before heading off to college, and some enjoy playing video games and just relaxing. What’s fun to Max Harrison, a Grand Blanc High School grad who will be a freshman at Eastern Michigan University this year, is spending time at libraries and museums, finishing up research for a reference book he is writing. The subject: old, one- and two-room school houses in Genesee County. He has always loved history and will major in history and math at EMU. “Math is the ‘fall back,’” he laughs. “I really want to be a college history professor. I can see myself doing that for the rest of my life.”
With its rich automotive history, Genesee County is one area where the appreciation and passion for high-performance, visually-pleasing, head-turning vehicles is unmistakable.
As a senior at Kettering University, Jonathan Blanchard is only a few years into his adulthood. Yet, he has an unmistakable, powerful, and passionate concern for the next generation.
For one local entrepreneur, a love of horses led to a successful business. Fred Hensler, CEO of Sapphire Blue Investment Partners, Inc. in Fenton, can’t wait to go to work every day. “I’m one of the lucky people who loves life, loves my family, my career and the people I’ve met along the way,” he says. He takes every opportunity to light up a room full of strangers, and walk out with a room of friends.
Raise It Up! Youth Arts & Awareness is an award-winning organization that promotes youth engagement, expression, and empowerment through performance, literary arts, and social justice activism. In 2009, Raise It Up! was officially launched through a grant by the Ruth Mott Foundation and operates under the sponsorship of the United Way of Genesee County.
Dr. Richard Stanley is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Kettering University and is affectionately called “Coach” by his students and fellow faculty members. Along with his role of professor, he is also the moderator for Kettering’s Faculty Senate and the University’s martial arts instructor. Martial arts have been his passion for many years, one that he enjoys sharing with the students. He is a strong, confident man; but it wasn’t always that way. When he was younger, he was picked on and bullied by other kids. At 19 years old, he’d had enough and decided to train in martial arts to learn how to defend himself. He earned a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Tang Soo Do Karate, a Korean martial art, and later went on to earn a 4th Degree Purple Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which he has practiced for 15 years.
The sign for Knight Cycle Works looks like it could have hung from an awning outside a business a century ago.
Gordon has long been friends with Al Foster, who had competed with a team in the World Class Double-block snow carving competition at Snowfest. “It always sounded like a lot of fun, so after a few years of telling the guys to bring me on, they finally did,” Gordon remembered. Al, who has been involved in snow carving since 1995, says that as a fellow artist, Gordon was a natural fit for Team USA- Flint. Ryan Leix joined the team one year after Gordon, and Sam Licavoli rounds out the group as the newest member, having joined in 2014.
Born to parents who met in Flint after migrating from the South, Bruce grew up surrounded by and immersed in music. “My father was the oldest of his siblings, so our house was the meeting place for the whole extended family. Every weekend, it was packed with people, and music was a big part of those gatherings. My sister and I used to practice dancing with the TV show American Bandstand. I was pretty good and my dad was so proud of us. He’d call us out to give little performances in front of the family.” As a child, Bruce remembers his sister’s friends loving to practice dancing with him too. “When I went to school, I used to dance with the girls at recess while the boys played ball,” he chuckled, “so I guess you could say I was endeared to dance from a young age.” In middle school, Bruce taught his friends to dance in preparation for parties. “Dancing was part of the social fabric of the black community,” he remembered, “because music in general played such a huge role. Fabulous black musicians performed in Flint, and after their sets, they came to houses like my aunt’s and played for us all night.” By the time Bruce was in high school, he was involved in sports like wrestling, football and swimming, but dancing remained an important part of his social life. “All the kids would practice, you know, when a big dance was coming up,” he explained.
