The 57-year-old Flint native has been enthralled with the sport since he was a teen playing in church leagues and experienced plenty of success as a player. He helped Ball State University to the national Division 1 semifinals, earning all-conference honors there and at Kellogg Community College.
In 1978, a two-year renovation of the hotel was undertaken by George and two other investors, with painstaking precautions taken to preserve its rich history – from lusty brawls and ghost sightings to an axe-yielding Prohibitionist. And while the history and ambiance are enticing, it’s the classic and creative American cuisine that Holly Hotel patrons say makes this a destination for the ages. George, the Executive Chef, is the driving force behind the food. “We run a very formal kitchen,” says Chrissy. Every Tuesday, George and his staff visit the farmer’s market, where seasonal fruits and vegetables are hand-picked. According to Chrissy, several of the signature entrées are made from the same recipes used since the hotel’s re-inception in 1978, including filet of beef Wellington, amaretto whitefish, chicken strudel, lingonberry duck, baby lamb and Norwegian salmon. The chicken strudel, which is Chrissy’s favorite, is made with shredded organic hen, broccoli, French cheese, euro cream, filo dough and served with a raspberry coulis. “It’s amazing!” she exclaimed. The beef Wellington is a customer favorite made with bacon-roasted filet mignon en croute, mushroom duxelle, Gruyère and demi-glace.
Inside the main atrium at Genesys, window displays filled with twinkling lights and sparkling ornaments invite visitors into the Acorn Gift & Flower Shop, where a carefully curated selection of porcelain angels, smiling snowmen and fuzzy moose beg to be taken home for the holidays. “We choose the merchandise ourselves,” said Store Manager Karen Badgley. “It’s always a treat to shop for our holiday offerings, especially when our selections become popular and sell out!” Karen says she’s worked in retail for years, but she’s never worked anywhere like this. “Our store is staffed by volunteers, and it is such a great place to work. The volunteers are just fabulous,” she said.
The Artisan Village is also a showplace for 20 Michigan artists to display their work. Flying off the shelves are very popular granite cheese boards. “They sell like hotcakes,” John laughed. Also on display are bird houses, clothing by Michigan Outfitter, copper sculptures, glass bead work by Ann Marie Frances, Christmas ornaments, candles and other unique gifts. “Every artist here has a story,” says John, “and each artist is unique.” Also on display is something near and dear to John’s heart – a collection of books written by his father, John LaCroix. “He is the reason I started this store,” John explained. John has written several books, including his popular children’s series, Thimbledon.
Judge Duncan M. Beagle is known throughout the community as a caring and generous man. As a Genesee County Circuit Court judge, he has sat through many cases in which people were struggling and hurting, especially during the holidays. He heard about the Saginaw County Bar Association’s dinner, so he sent then-GCBA president Brian Barkey and Tom Pabst, GCBA vice president at the time, to Saginaw to get ideas for starting a holiday dinner in Genesee County. “It was there that the dream of Flint’s Holiday Dinner was born,” Brian remembers. “Judge Beagle has the biggest heart!”
The GRO Pod is an intense spiritual and life skills class designed to immerse inmates in biblical knowledge and teach them life skills to stop the cycle of recidivism. It is one of the many programs sustained by Forgotten Man Ministries. FMM is a missionary team dedicated to witnessing to inmates in order to change the trajectory of their lives. Everything they do, from Friday night worship services and special ministries such as Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, to correspondence courses, individual counseling and even the book cart of reading material, is designed to lead people closer to God. But their efforts don’t end there. “When we see the Lord’s instruction to make disciples of all nations,” Novak explained, “we know it doesn’t just mean leading people to Christ. We need to help them grow up and mature in the Spirit. Everything we do works to that end. The GRO Pod is one of our most effective efforts simply because of the amount of time we have to disciple those students.” Chaplain Al is referring to the extensive length of the class: 200 hours of instruction in ten weeks. “Two things tend to happen when a person goes to prison,” the chaplain said. “Either they become further involved in crime, or they change and never return. We are trying to delete people from the system: to change them so they never return.” This is not just rhetoric. Statistics from the GRO Pod program in the Kent County Jail indicate that recidivism rates dropped from 76% to 25%.
Bad habits, particularly drug use, plague kids who grow up in the inner city. Joshua Stanton of Detroit was no exception. Occasional drug use did not stop him from achieving success, though. “I put in 100 hours a week and built a big construction business in Houston, TX. In fact, all I did was work.” Despite the money and success, he always felt something was missing in his life. Exhausted and disillusioned, Joshua decided to take a vacation in the spring of 2012. “This was the beginning of the downward spiral that led me to God,” he recalled, “because when I returned to Michigan, I met up with some old buddies and we started partying … a lot.” Further disillusioned and now using drugs again, Joshua closed his legitimate business and engaged in the drug trade. “Partying had depleted my resources – nearly a quarter of a million dollars – and I was beginning to feel desperate. In February 2013, I was arrested in Detroit after a search of my vehicle revealed a large stash of drugs.” After posting bond, Stanton fled the state. “I was in an ugly place,” Joshua said slowly. “My heroin addiction was out of control. Then I started using Crystal Meth.” His life spiraling out of control, he was arrested in Chicago and again fled. Then, while in Flint on a drug trip, he hit rock bottom. In a terrible fight that included family members, Joshua was arrested again. He decided to face the music and was arraigned on December 23, 2013. “I remember going completely numb when I was standing in front of that judge,” he said. That year, Joshua spent the most memorable Christmas he can remember … in jail. “There was an old-timer in there talking about Jesus,” Joshua recalled, “and the way he was talking made a lot of sense to me. It became clear what I had been missing my whole life.” As a new inmate, Joshua was not allowed anything in his cell, but a guard let him take a Bible anyway. “The next day when I walked into the medical room for a consultation, I saw my family doctor from years past. I had no idea he was the jail’s medical director, and when I saw him, I just broke down crying.” A Christian man who had often talked to Joshua about Jesus, the doctor explained salvation and gave him guidance for reading the Bible. “When I started reading, I realized who I needed, and I prayed for salvation. From the very first minute, the Lord started working miracles in my life. It was strange, but I could feel the weight being peeled off of me. My burdens got so light so quick that I’ve never felt so peaceful as I did sitting in jail,” Joshua says looking back.
Begun in the Motown basement of Mr. Perry Dorrance in 1935, the Detroit Model Railroad Club is the eighth-oldest club in the United States, and will celebrate its 80th anniversary in the coming year. The Detroit Union Railroad model fills nearly the entire space of the building. Only the balcony in the back is left open for the dispatch center and the club’s extensive model railroading library. The club’s building plays a very important role in the railroad’s set-up. “This building was a movie theater, so the floor slopes downward. When we purchased it, we were going to build up the floor to make it level, but a few of our more forward-thinking members saw how we could make the grade work to our advantage.” Instead of building up the floor, the members built the track horizontally so that the sloping floor underneath it allows members to navigate through the railroad’s extensive infrastructure with relative ease, “although it gets more difficult the more we age,” Dave laughed. While the club boasts 75 members of all ages, “our median hovers in the retirement age group,” Dave quipped.
