High School Playoffs

Pre-Districts:

Constantine 7, Schoolcraft 3
Mendon 49,  Cassopolis 0
Three Rivers 14,  Otsego 0
White Pigeon 14,  Decatur 6
Colon 45,  St. Joseph Michigan Lutheran 0

Special TR meeting Nov. 9th

The Three Rivers City Commission will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, November 9th, at City Hall.

This will be the annual commission organizational meeting that follows the general election.

According to City Clerk Lindsay Howes, the commission will appoint a Mayor Pro-Tem and determine its meeting times, rules of order, meeting guidelines, liaison appointments, and employee holiday schedule.

Included in this meeting will be the general discussion of official duties and functions of the city’s department heads.

The commission will also consider playground equipment purchase and installation for Scidmore Park.

Sonny Gentry, 72

Robert Earl “Sonny” Gentry, age 72 of Mendon, died Thursday Oct. 29, 2009 at his home with family at his side. He was born in Three Rivers on Dec. 12, 1936 the son of the late John Ray and Mary Ovella (Crow) Gentry. Sonny graduated from Mendon High School with the class of 1956, and later served in the U.S. Army. He was married to Darlene Johnson on Oct. 6, 1956 in Angola, IN. They resided in the Bristol, IN area before returning to Mendon 23 years ago.

Sonny was a mechanic at Hull Lift Truck in Elkhart for over 20 years, and was most recently employed at Car Quest in Sturgis. He was an outdoorsman and was usually accompanied by his faithful dog, Brewster. He enjoyed working on classic cars and watching NASCAR racing.

Sonny is survived by his wife, Darlene; 4 children, Becky Shafer of Mongo, IN, Julie Gentry of Osceola, IN, Mark Gentry (Mary) of Osceola, IN, and John Gentry (Genevieve) of White Pigeon; 8 grandchildren; 7 great-grandchildren; 3 brothers, Ron Gentry of Mendon, Doug Gentry (Pat) of Casa Grande, AZ, and Terry Gentry (Karla) of Schoolcraft; 4 sisters, Bessie Jones of South Bend, Violet Spence of Mendon, Mary Patterson (Tom) of Gatesville, TX, and Sharon Rial (Sam) of Colon; and several nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents; and a sister, Althea.

The family will receive friends from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday Oct. 31, 2009 at the Eickhoff Funeral Home in Mendon. Funeral services will be 2 p.m. Saturday at the funeral home with Rev. Barbara Van Eck, Chaplain of Borgess VNA & Hospice officiating. Cremation will follow services and a private interment will take place later. The family suggests that memorials be directed to the Animal Rescue Fund. An online register is available at www.eickhofffuneralhome.com

Happy Halloween!

The month of October is my busiest month of the year.

Work is always crazy busy for me as we gear up for year end; I am usually working longer hours, weekends or even taking things home on the weekends to complete. Add to that the many road trips that I have to take to go visit various clients in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. Time just gets away from me.

All of the above just happens to coincide with the start of hockey season. As many of you know, my family and I are season ticket holders for the Kalamazoo Wings, but I also cover them for the newspaper. Training camp, media luncheon, preseason games, the home opener, and, of course, Orange Ice Night, which happens to be tonight, game time 7:30, add even more to my plate.

Juggling all of that with the family does make for an interesting month around our house. In addition to family time, housework, laundry, and all of the fun that comes with being a homeowner, I often wonder where the time goes. This brings me to the point of this column: leaves and pumpkins. (Don’t ask me how all of this relates, but it just does!)

Last year I told you about how I procrastinated when it came to the leaves and I waited until the night before the final leaf pickup to start raking them. If my memory serves me well, it was also snowing that day. This year, I vowed not to let that happen again. As I write this column, it is Thursday and leaf pickup day is Friday, as in tomorrow, but for your sake, yesterday. And there are leaves all over my yard. The best part of this story is that, with the exception of a few smaller trees, all of the leaves are courtesy of my surrounding neighbors!

With all the craziness that has surrounded me the past few weeks, I was relieved that my yard was free and clear of leaves. That is until it rained the other day. My once green yard now has an overcoat of yellow, orange, and red leaves. Lucky for me this is the first of three scheduled pickup days, but still! I tried to be proactive, but Mother Nature had to throw me a curveball during my busy time!

Carving pumpkins has become a rather interesting process at our house these days, with four pumpkins to slice and dice. Hannah, our three-year-old, likes to play with the “yucky” gunk that comes out of the pumpkins instead of telling us what she wants her pumpkin to look like. And Alexis, our 4-month-old, was obviously not a lot of help, so the carving task belonged to my wife and me.

At work, however, I participated in a pumpkin-decorating contest. I had no idea what my concept was until I sat down to create my masterpiece. I opted not to carve, but instead to paint. I let my somewhat odd sense of humor take control and went to work. As I painted my pumpkin, I was getting some rather strange looks from my co-workers, but I forged ahead. Yes, my pumpkin resembled a pig. But not just any pig. This pig had wings. Several people guessed that my pumpkin represented the old phrase “when pigs fly”, but they were wrong.

“Swine Flu”. Yup, that is what my pumpkin stood for. Pig + Wings = Swine Flu. I thought it was clever, but our office cleaning staff did not. As one of my co-workers was leaving the building that night, one of the cleaning people stopped her. Pointing to my cubicle, she asked, “Does he have the swine flu?” Biting her lip, my co-worker said no, it was just my entry into our pumpkin-decorating contest. The cleaning lady let out a sigh of relief; she was prepared to sanitize my workstation. (This probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea, now that I think about it).

If I did have the swine flu, I certainly would not go buy a pumpkin, decorate it, and bring it into work. At least I don’t think I would.

Submitted by Mark McGlothlen

Orange Ice Game

The undefeated Kalamazoo Wings haunted the Reading Royals and Trenton Devils already this season, and they are hoping to put a scare into two more teams that they face this weekend.

The K-Wings (5-0-0-0) hit the road for West Virginia yesterday to take on the Wheeling Nailers (2-5-0-0). Following the game, the team returns to Wings Stadium to face-off against the Toledo Walleye (3-2-0-0) for the Sixth Annual Orange Ice Game on Saturday.

With the K-Wings getting home in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, head coach Nick Bootland is not overly concerned that the travel will affect the players’ game.

“We are taking a sleeper bus, so if you’re smart, you’re going to sleep,” Bootland said of the players.

 “These guys are professional athletes and should know what it takes to be ready to play on Saturday night. We all deal with it.”

With the K-Wings off to their second best start in history (the 1990-91 team started the season 7-0-0-0) Bootland said that there is still room for improvement.

“While we are excited to be off to the start we are, we realize there are still things we can improve on,” Bootland said.

The true test to see how the K-Wings stand up to the rest of the ECHL will be when they start playing more teams, according to Bootland.

One game that Bootland has been looking forward to is Saturday night’s game against the Walleye.

“That’s a game I marked in the calendar,” Bootland said. “I’m looking forward to that one and see where we stand against the other team that basically started from scratch.”

The Walleye are returning to the ECHL after going dark for two years as a new arena was built.

Three players from last year’s K-Wings squad play for the Walleyes: Tommy Lange, Mark Nebus and Dominic Osman.

Bootland expects the three former players to have their best games of the season as they make their return to Wings Stadium.

“I’m sure they are going to be real excited to try and beat us,” Bootland said.

Skating on the orange ice isn’t a worry for Bootland; rather he is more concerned about the atmosphere that will be present in the stadium Saturday night.

“The big worry is that the guys are going to be running around with their hair on fire and not playing systems because they are so pumped up to play,” Bootland said.

No matter who scores the first goal, Bootland said it doesn’t change how the K-Wings approach the game.

“Your highs can’t be too high and your lows can’t be too low,” Bootland said.

“Even keel is what we talk about.”

The Sixth Annual Orange Ice Game is this Saturday, Oct. 31 with face-off set for 7:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Wings Stadium Ticket Office at 269-345-5101 or purchasing them at the door. Fans are encouraged to wear their costumes, go trick-or-treating and be a part of the Halloween costume contest.

K-Wings News & Notes

Mag-NIE-ficent: K-Wings goaltender Ryan Nie was selected as the Reebok Hockey ECHL Goaltender of the Week for Oct. 19-25.

For the week, Nie was 2-0-0-0 stopping 57 of the 60 shots he faced. Overall this season, Nie is a perfect 3-0-0-0, which also puts him into a tie for the league lead in wins, second with 0.957 save percentage and third with a goal-against-average of 1.32.

Skate on Orange Ice: Wings Stadium will host the Annual Halloween Spooky Skate tonight from 7-9 p.m. Skaters are encouraged to come dressed in their costumes. Slappy, the K-Wings mascot, will be judging the costumes and handing out the prizes. Admission is $6. Skates can be rented for $3.

K-Wings tops in Kalamazoo: The Kalamazoo Wings were named the Best Local Sports Team in the Kalamazoo Gazette’s second annual Reader’s Choice Awards.

One dead in Kazoo shooting

Kalamazoo police say a shooting there has left one man dead and another badly wounded. Read more

Next Page »