Musical ramblings from the manager
Early in the spring of 2023, John Carlisle from the Detroit Free Press called the WOAS-FM studio to inquire how our fundraising was going. It didn’t dawn on me to ask where he had heard about our need to purchase a new transmitter but I told him, “We are just getting started on it and […]
In Part 1 of Cha Cha Changes (again, my apologies to David Bowie for borrowing his song title), we began running down what Ontonagon was like in 1975 when I first arrived as the new Junior High Geography/Earth Science teacher in the Ontonagon Area Schools. This article was begun as a presentation made at […]
When recently asked to present ‘something about how things have changed around here’ for the Ontonagon County Historical Society, I said, “Let me think about it before I say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.” There are already many volumes available about the history of the area (see: Knox Jamison, Earl Doyle, and Bruce Johanson for starters), […]
At the conclusion of Part 1, we left Richy Starkey just as he hit the big time in the Liverpool music scene. No, he wasn’t in The Beatles yet. He was a member of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and Richy was known to be the best drummer within 150 miles of his home […]
Can an 82 year-old take on 23 concert dates consisting of two and three night stands with a couple of days off in between? After witnessing Ringo’s All Starr Band hit the stage in Eugene, Oregon on Friday June 2, 2023, I am going to guess the answer is, “Oh yeah!” Ringo doesn’t do […]
The most visible planet in the western sky, Venus, will take a dramatic plunge during the month of July. It will begin July 25 degrees above the horizon and will set 2.3 hours after the Sun on that date. By August 1, Venus will only be 3 degrees above the horizon and will set a […]
When photos were posted of eight year-old Nante Niemi being piggybacked out of the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park on Eli Talsma’s back this past spring, a combined sigh of relief and shouts of joy echoed far beyond the Western Upper Peninsula. NBC’s Today Show led off the parade of national media stories. Later […]
The recent floods that sometimes plague Ewen and Chassell are a reminder that we are not immune to weather related problems here in the Upper Peninsula. Annual flooding of the South Branch of the Ontonagon River at the M28 bridge in Ewen and the Sturgeon River Slough area crossed by US41 near Chassell seem […]
Sometimes an unfamiliar name used as a title for an FTV article doesn’t have enough information to be a real ‘grabber’. On the other hand, filling out the title of this installment with more details would be a little overwhelming. With that said, let me add this to go with the * above to […]
When an article about Jim ‘Kimo’ West appeared in Guitar World magazine’s April 2023 issue, parts of his story sounded real familiar. It occurred to me that I just might have talked about him some in a previous From the Vaults, so I started backtracking through my index of titles. I was just beginning […]