Erin Crowell

Features Erin Crowell

Today’s industry trends aren’t lost on Carter Schmidt.

“Selling lemonade? You just don’t make much doing that; and, well, the newspaper boy may have disappeared,” the eight-year-old tells me, a journalist, on the logistics of childhood employment. The third grader at Eastern Elementary School in Traverse City is an entrepreneur, having just completed the milestone of one year in business with his company, Carter’s Compost. The bike-powered, kid-driven kitchen scrap pick-up service has been turning dirt since last April, charging its Traverse City neighborhood customers $5 a month for fresh compost.

Features Erin Crowell “Whether I didn’t have capital, a business partner, a network of people that could help me along, I just had all these barriers and I got to a point where I couldn’t get it out of my system,” said the 29-year-old Cadillac area native. “I would stay up late at night just ultimately depressed that I wasn’t pursuing it.

Features Erin Crowell “We took a walk through the vineyards--and this sounds corny but it’s true--I picked up a dandy-lion and blew it,” said Fox. “Brody asked what I wished for and I said that we would spend our lives together...When I turned around he was down on his knee, with a box in hand!”

Features Erin Crowell Traverse City Central High School senior Abbey Kaufman takes center stage as Elle Woods, the sweet, bubbly, sorority heroine of “Legally Blonde, The Musical,” a stage adaptation of the Broadway hit and film starring Reese Witherspoon.

The 17-year-old Kaufman beat out dozens of other young actresses to capture the lead role.The Express chatted with Kaufman—a sweet, soft-spoken girl, herself—to find out what it’s like to don pink and perform with an older cast.

Features Erin Crowell

Not many couples spend their honeymoon getting married. But for Traverse City residents Rob Stow and Jeremy Evans, they were doing just that when they took a train from New York City to a courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut.

In August of 2009, the two gay men arrived and filled out the application that would legally bind them as a married couple, and handed it to the county clerk employee wearing a baseball cap.

“It was very mundane for her,” Stow chuckled. “It was so nonchalant.”

Features Erin Crowell For one hair or wax appointment, clients at the Foiled Hair Lounge in downtown Traverse City are transported, for a moment, to the urban feel of a city landscape. With just the tops of buildings—including nearby businesses and churches—in view, the hair studio gives the impression of a city loft.

Erin Crowell Ah, yes. The steamy shrill of a train whistle. It’s not something we hear often in Traverse City these days, except when it’s time for the annual Festival of Trains. Presented by the Northern Michigan Railroad Club (NMRC) at the History Center of Traverse City, this year marks the 10th anniversary of the miniature models and is open now through New Years Day.

Features Erin Crowell

Did you know? Long before Tim Allen was promoting Michigan with his smooth, hypnotic-like voice, our state’s first Pure Michigan campaign was drawing visitors as early as the 1800s.

On Friday, Nov. 16, Michael Federspiel will discuss how local entrepreneurs teamed with railroad and steamship companies to market the Little Traverse Bay region over 100 years ago.

Features Erin Crowell Like (and unlike) many people my age, I don’t have children. I have a dog. And even though Charley, my four-year-old border collie/lab mix, doesn’t serve to supplement my lack of offspring, she does, however, take the form of a quasi child.

Both require discipline, time, love and poop duty.

Features Erin Crowell

For awhile, all I hear is the rustling of dry corn stalks in the wind. Then, I hear the laughter of a child somewhere toward the west. I can’t see anyone, but I know they are wandering like me through this maze of maize.

Features Erin Crowell In a rotted-out building in Suttons Bay, Jeff Bryant sifts through a pile of rusted desks, abandoned cabinets, broken windows and molding furniture. A grape vine, with violet berries still attached, snakes through the gaping hole in the ceiling into the collection of junk.

Features Erin Crowell Under the Wikipedia entry for “drone,” you will find such words as “chemical,” “warfare,” “target” and “humanoid” – words that send a chill down one’s spine when considering their recent presence in the media. Drones, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) as they are technically referred to, are being heavily manufactured and put to use by the U.S. government, and in countries throughout the world.

Features Erin Crowell

Last year at the Traverse City Film Festival, I volunteered at the State Theater. My shift, which consisted of taking tickets and counting occupants, had me working alongside a couple who were summering in the area.

Features Erin Crowell A small audience at the InsideOut Gallery in Traverse City sits in the dark. They are at tables and on lounge furniture, drinks in hand. Some lean back, a leg crossed. Others sit on the edge of seats, chins mounted on fists, eyes fixed to the stage that holds everyone’s attention in the room. Someone is telling a story.

Features Erin Crowell From the time the leaves started to turn and drop to the rise in spring temperatures, Alan Newton sat down and spoke with 24 homeless people living in Traverse City. A few are on the street by choice; but all are there by circumstance. Some are drug addicts, others are alcoholics.