Reflecting on 2024’s biggest moments
JANUARY 4, 2024:
More than 15% of the septic systems in Leelanau County evaluated last year were found to be non-compliant. So say the results of a year-end report from the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department (BLDHD). The report, shared with the Board of Health, identifi ed 39 of 255 septic systems evaluated in the first year of the new point-of-sale NSC (Not in Substantial Compliance).
*** Leelanau County and the Traverse City area continue to get exposure in the national media. The peninsula is listed No. 4 place to go in an article titled “24 places to go in 2024.” The list focuses on “largely undiscovered” or “hidden gems” rather than the typical concrete jungles publications tend to promote. *** District 3 Commissioner Doug Rexroat will continue serving as vice-chair of the county Board of Commissioners. Commissioners held their yearly organizational meeting yesterday. District 4 commissioner Ty Wessell was not up for reelection this year, as his two-year term as board chairman continues through the end of 2024. So, the meeting started with the election of a vice chairman. Last year, Doug Rexroat was elected vice chair, replacing District 7 commissioner Melinda Lautner after at least 10 years in that position. He was reelected for another one-year term yesterday morning with unanimous support from his fellow commissioners.
JANUARY 11, 2024:
The wait was over on Wednesday as John Scholten, regional president of the Michigan Leadership Institute, presented the results of the organizational culture survey that the board of commissioners hired him to prepare in November. Almost every seat in the large board of commissioners meeting room was occupied by members of the public and staff from many county departments. The report was like the early stages of therapy in the opinion of commissioner Jamie Kramer: “It’s gross, It’s ugly, It hurts, and it doesn’t feel good.” But by bringing some of the underlying issues contributing to the resignation of many county employees to the surface, she said they can now address them. *** Everyone seems to agree that the workplace survey results delivered to commissioners last week painted an unflattering picture of county government. But county Clerk Michelle Crocker may have gotten the worst of it. The newspaper reached out for reactions to the Yet also within his files was an offer of employment for the Conservation Department dated March 23, 1927, for a salary of $3,600. Letters of appreciation from three Michigan governors followed over the course of his 27-year career with the state.
Hastings grew up in South Lyon and moved many times within Michigan before retiring to Arizona. A preponderance of information contained in his files, which are housed at the Bentley Museum in Ann Arbor and the Archives of Michigan in Lansing, point to a long love affair with Northwest Michigan in general and Leelanau County in particular.
An undated column by Julia Terry Dickinson, whose “Leelanau Lookout” writings in the Leelanau Enterprise carried the county news of the week, was included among Hastings’ possessions. She opined the appropriateness of naming a new birding organization representing Leelanau, Grand Traverse and Benzie counties the “Walter Hastings Audubon Society.”
“He and Mrs. Hastings had a home on the east shore of South Lake Leelanau and made their property a sanctuary for all kinds of wildlife. For several years he was on the camp and school staff of The Leelanaau School, and more recently he has joined the faculty of the National Music Camp at Interlochen.”
Dickinson was doing more than reporting news. She was a fan.
“Walt Hastings understands and appreciates the wonders of nature with true humility, and he is able to bestow this feeling on boys and girls, men and women — anyone, in fact, whom he takes for a walk in the woods,” she wrote.
Among my findings was a full page story that presumably ran in the Grand Rapids Press proclaiming,, “Small-Mouth Bass Offer Fun Aplenty; Season’s Opening on Lake Leelanau with Walt Hastings Brings Good Catch.” The story was written by Ben East, another of my folk heroes of Michigan conservation, in his signature awe shucks style, the pair and two companions landed nine big smallies and enjoyed a fish fry on that Monday.
Hastings hooked the first one, which ”cleared the water a fourth time in a short, uncurving leap, rolling over like a stunting flying fish and was free. ‘Good for him,’ was Walt’s only comment. ‘He earned it.’” Another clipping describes a “big, enclosed pen” built by Hastings along the Lake Leelanau shoreline from which he held in captivity for a short period “creatures from the surrounding countryside and forest” including everything from badgers to deer.
Hastings was phenomenal to a public with new-found time to recreate. He once held showings of his photos and films to 8,000 people over the course of a week, and 30,000 people over six weeks. He used his pulpit to push a message that followed one of quotes in a 1935 interview in the Detroit Free Press: ““The citizens of Michigan are beginning to appreciate that the wildlife of our state is not solely the property of the hunter and the fisherman to kill or destroy as he sees fit. The enormous tourist and resort business is bringing us all to an appreciation of the fact that wildlife is a natural resource that in justice we cannot permit to be destroyed for the pleasure of one class.”
Hastings was one of those rare fellows able to walk interchangeably among academics and buffalo-plaid nimrods. I would appreciate an opportunity to talk to anyone who might know more about him for a magazine article I’m writing.
The article, I’m hoping, will reintroduce this amazing conservationist to a generation that owes him a debt of gratitude for nurturing a heritage of respect for nature.
Alan Campbell may be emailed at [email protected], or by phone or text to 231-492-4972.
HASTINGS
