One of my ToDo List items as Chairman of Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) was to see a new website up and running and get MCEDC tied into some of the social media outlets. Thanks to Jennifer, Derek and Pam, this is one I can strike off my list. (The benefits of Chairing organizations is that you can direct other people to do things and then take credit for their hard work. Thanks guys!) If you haven’t visited the new website, you can do so here. It takes most of the good things from the old site and has added some functionality. Some of these originated internally and some were the result of our work with Ady Voltedge on our marketing plan.
The website has been up since the first quarter of this year. In the past month, Derek has added the social media connections. MCEDC is now posting to Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. You can go to the MCEDC home page and there are a couple of places with the connection buttons for these services. Visit the site! More clicks there help our SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ratings and that could mean the difference in attracting new business to Marshall County. If you Google it to find it, that helps even more…
The Lake Maxinkuckee Environmental Council (LMEC) is sponsoring a Canoe/Kayak Poker Run at Lakefest this year. They currently have 25 registrants and are looking for another 27. I think Kathy wants to try playing with a full deck…
If you’re interested, contact Kathy Clark at the LMEC office at (574) 842-3686 or stop by at 116 North Main Street, Culver. You can also find a registration form online here. The registration deadline has been extended to July 11th at 3:00 pm. Participants will get a tee shirt commemorating the event.
It should be a fun event! Canoes and Kayaks will hit the water Friday, July 20th, at 5:oopm. Good luck to everyone that decides to give it a try!
As mentioned here previously, I had the opportunity to attend an event put on by The Remnant Trust last week. An Open House was held at their facility in Winona Lake, followed by a meal and program at a local banquet facility. As with everything associated with The Remnant Trust, it was handled professionally and was very entertaining. I was afforded the opportunity to meet with members of The Remnant Trust board as well as prominent citizens of Warsaw and the surrounding area. It was rewarding to be able to discuss our work on the facility with the people that made it possible.
The Open House included access to the vault where they had character actors portraying two of our Founding Fathers, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. It is always interesting to see these portrayals and fascinating to see how they choose to handle interactions with the modern world. In this case, they chose to handle it as having made the trip from the east coast and being somewhat surprised that the native population was a bit more advanced than their scouts and explorers had led them to believe… They each went through the vault and discussed books that they were familiar with from their time or earlier, discussing how these books had affected their lives and philosophies. Listening to “Thomas Jefferson” discuss the works of Aristotle and “James Madison” discuss the Magna Charta was fascinating.
At the banquet center, the former Presidents continued to circulate through the crowd discussing various issues. A period accurate meal was served with several dishes prepared in the custom of that time including things like lamb with mint jelly, venison and black-eyed peas. Everything was quite good!
After the meal, two videos were shown illustrating the public work that The Remnant Trust pursues. Interviews with grade school children in Fort Wayne that had been given the opportunity to touch and work with the documents was particularly interesting. From the video I learned that using the character actors to present their documents to the public is one of their standard practices. I can attest that it was effective!
The Presidents were asked to make comments on what they had seen there, which they did in historical context. Then questions and answers came from the audience. A couple of questions were obviously asked to test the knowledge of the actors and they rose to the occasion with admirable knowledge. I was quite impressed as several of the questions showed historical knowledge that was beyond me and the actors barely paused before giving eloquent responses.
All in all, it was an enjoyable evening. Educational and Fun! It was quite fitting just days before celebrating Independence Day. Thank you Kris and Miranda for including me!
Tomorrow is Independence Day! Most of us around here will have to get our fireworks fix from the TV rather than in person. The county-wide burn ban has been extended to include fireworks. It appears that most of our region is under the same restrictions due to the drought.
It’s just not the same thing when you can’t smell the gunpowder and feel the boom in your chest. While it would be very cool to see the fireworks in Washington like in the picture to the right, nothing can really beat watching fireworks light up the sky over Lake Maxinkuckee. I think the water enhances the sound when you’re watching from a distance and often you get a double display as you see the bursts of color reflected on the water.
For many years we would make an annual pilgrimage of it and meet with friends and relatives at the lake to have a bon-fire and cookout as we waited for the show. Our nieces and nephews grew up anticipating the annual gathering. Unfortunately those days are gone.
July 4th, 2012 is falling in an election year. Once again we’re being told that this is the most important election ever! I’ve heard that a few too many times to put a lot of stock in it. Neither side’s dominance is likely to result in an Independence Day (the 1996 movie) destruction of the White House as depicted to the left. That doesn’t mean that the partisanship isn’t excessive in Washington right now. Whoever wins, even by a slim margin, will call it a mandate and think it gives them license to push the pendulum as far as possible in their direction.
I am currently reading a book about Benjamin Franklin. It’s been interesting reading about how one of our founding fathers struggled with the choice to fight for independence and the various minor grievances that were compounded to create the original decision. (I’ve always been partial to old Ben despite what he did to us with DST!) It’s enlightening to relate those historic events to current movements such as the TEA Party and MoveOn.org. To quote Dan Brown, “History is always written by the winners.” It will be interesting to see what comes of our current culture clashes.
Here’s another good quote I like from Winston Churchill, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Despite the terrible partisanship, we are still better off than North Korea, Iran or any of the other radical governments out there. Tomorrow is a good day to set aside the politics and think about the positive things about our nation. Take some time while enjoying the holiday cookout to think about how our country started and what we have. Fly a flag and give thanks to those that created our nation as well as those that are currently protecting our freedom here and overseas. Happy 4th of July!
Just as an update to our previous post here, Jeff Kenney wrote a piece regarding Kris Bex’s presentation to the Culver Kiwanis Club in the June 14th edition of the Culver Citizen. (You can click on the article to the below to enlarge it.) Thanks for the plug Jeff!
I would imagine Jeff found a kindred soul in Kris Bex, knowing Jeff’s interests in writing and history. The Remnant Trust’s focused mission to preserve documents promoting Liberty and Dignity makes it a unique asset to Northern Indiana.
I will be attending a Remnant Trust event this evening. There will be a tour of the facility, some period character actors and a social gathering for local supporters. I’m looking forward to the event (even though I’m forced to wear a tie!). It is always interesting to go back to completed projects and see how they evolve from the original plans. The Remnant Trust is a particularly interesting example since the facility serves as somewhat of a museum and is constantly changing their displays and presentations.