/The State News
Studio art sophomore Caitlin Gallagher, left, and chemistry sophomore Megan Vrobel pet Zeke before the game against Penn State on Saturday afternoon. Before the home football games, Jim and Terri Foley, Zeke's owners, take the dog around to as many tailgates as they can. Zeke's favorite tailgating food is chili.
More Living City
911
BreAnne Reynolds has worked at the East Lansing 911 Center for five years and is currently working as a night shift operator. “You have to have a special kind of personality to work in this room,” Reynolds said, “because it can be long nights, it can be a lot of stressful situations.” The 911 center, which operates out of the basement of the East Lansing police station, dispatches emergency calls for Meridian Township, East Lansing and MSU. “One of the things that’s nice about this job is that you actually get to help people, even though you’re just answering a phone,” she said.
thanks Giving
“Thanksgiving is every day and I’m thankful every time I wake up in the morning and I’m thankful for life in general,” Lansing resident Kay Fox said. Three Native American women, MSU College of Law professor Wenona Singel, Fox and English doctoral student Nichole Shepherd discuss what they are thankful for this year and every day. They talk about gratitude from different stages and perspectives in life. Collectively they are mother, grandmother, student, teacher and women who work to build community and a oneness with everyday life. They say ‘thank you’ in Anishinaabemowin, the native language of people in and around Michigan, and tell their stories.
Horses teach riders, riders teach horses
Animal science sophomore and riding instructor Vanessa Knight walks through the woods at the Beekman Therapeutic Riding Center with volunteer Terri Silberstin and riding student Audrey riding lesson horse Annie. The Beekman Therapeutic Riding Center provides an opportunity for people with disabilities to get riding lessons. Audrey is one of the three students that Knight teaches on Tuesday evenings. Siberstin and doctoral student Lori Dithurbide (not pictured) volunteer on Tuesdays to help students like Audrey develop in their riding skills and benefit physically and emotionally from the riding. “Pat Parelli has this principle that horses teach riders and riders teach horses,” Knight said. “The therapeutic side is more of the horse teaching the rider; teaching them about balance and a lot of things that we can’t just sit down and tell them because they don’t have a way of communicating or something. It’s really cool to see. Like, Annie makes Audrey’s day. It’s just the simple things that they get really excited about.”
Not Just Toys
“Many people who are not in the hobby think of these as toy trains and they’re not,” Lansing Model Railroad Club vice president Michael Frezell said. Frezell, 37, began his model train collection after his parents gave him his first train set for Christmas when he was 5 years old. The club is headquartered at 5309 Old Lansing Road, in what used to be the Grand Trunk Western Railway Millett train depot, which was built in 1890. They hosted their annual model train show and sale Sunday at the Pavilion for Agriculture and Livestock Education and showcased collections from around the state.
Clint's Hot Dog Cart
Clint Tarver counts his money Tuesday afternoon at the corner of East Michigan Ave and South Capitol Ave. Tarver has been vending hot dogs for over ten years and was the first black vendor in Lansing. Tarver, who has made many friends through his hot dog business, says that his goal is to make passerbys smile whether it be by just saying “hi,” or selling them a hot dog. He says that making a few bucks doesn’t hurt though too.
Bike Polo: An Accessibly Challenging Sport
“I can only imagine the image that comes into peoples’ mind when I say to them, ‘Yeah, I’m going to play bike polo tomorrow,’” said Connor Ryan, who started bike polo games in Lansing. “It must be something really fantastical. But once you get here you look and you say, ‘Oooohhh, That makes sense.’”
The MSU English graduate student is among a growing number of people who turn out each Sunday afternoon to the Ranney Park tennis courts, near Frandor Shopping Center, to participate in pick-up games of the obscure sport.
The game is played with two teams of three people — each of whom are on a bike and wielding a homemade mallet to play toward a preset number of goals.
The rules prohibit putting feet on the ground at any time during play and contact in anything but the same medium. For example, bike on bike collisions are fair, but mallet in the spokes crosses the line.
Attendance varies from week to week, but Ryan said he’s confident people who love bikes will love bike polo.
“You should just come with whatever you have,” Ryan said. “Because we really, honestly, only care if you have a bike and want to have some fun.”
Haunted
“It’s almost like a challenge, or a game, see how many people you can scare, how bad you can scare them,” Lansing resident Donny Allen explained. Allen works as an actor with others, scaring visitors to the 3-Dementia haunted house in the Phantasmagoria Terror Dome at Funtyme Adventure Park in Okemos. “I actually enjoy scaring people; it’s actually very fun to me,” Allen explained. “You can see the fear in them and know that they are genuinely scared.”
"That First Cut into the Wood"
Jim Madsen has been a chainsaw sculptor for six years, ever since he saw another carver working at a county fair and decided that it was what he wanted to do for a living. Madsen said he has always been an artist and used to do portraits. One of his favorite things about his profession is the ability to travel and still work. “I can go any place across the United States and outside its borders to do this art form, and it’s so fascinating to people that don’t understand the art form to see someone with a chainsaw produce quality art work,” Madsen said. Madsen recently returned from Mexico and will be traveling to Amsterdam, Netherlands to carve a sculpture soon. Currently, Madsen is working on a two-story piece that will be displayed at the Annual Home & Garden Show at the Pavilion for Agricultural and Livestock Education. He has spent about 100 hours working on the top and says that he will be putting about that much work into the rest of it before it is done. “I wanted to bring something that kind of makes a statement,” Madsen said about the size of the piece. Madsen’s favorite thing to carve is something he has never carved before and said that he loves a challenge when creating a sculpture.