Terry Konkle

One area of our museum expansion projects that has been getting a lot of action recently is the planning of the exhibits to be featured. Jerry Adams from Media Rare in Grand Rapids has been a consultant for our project and has designed the new displays. Members of the Rockford Area Historical Society (RAHS) board of directors were updated on his ideas during a two-hour presentation last week and were impressed with his plans. Changes could still be made, but the layout and use of space is well thought out. The next step is to price out the cost of the exhibits, so that we can see how it fits into our budget. The Rockford City Council has asked for the layout and the cost, and both will be done soon.

Fundraising continues and the responses are greatly appreciated. When we started the project, some people told us that the timing was bad, and the economic situation would work against us. The courthouse was available now so the timing was also now. Several of us looked at each other and said, “This is Rockford.” If any area can make it work, Rockford can. Because I have lived here for 52 years, I know the pride that exists in the community. In my experiences with education and athletics as a teacher and coach at Rockford High School, I often saw our area band together to get things done. We have a great and valuable history and the following is an updated list of donors who are supporting our new museum.

Donors as of January 22, 2012

“It wasn’t the main office that was hit, it was my office,” Davis said. She said the Chamber has always been very security conscious, but will be even more so from now on.

Officers believe the person or persons gained access to the building through the warehouse located in the southeast end of the property. Davis said a bolt was broken, but with the heavy snowfall there were no footprints or vehicle tracks by the time the break-in was discovered.

“Police believe something spooked them and they stopped,” Davis said of the extent of the damage in the office.

Davis said vandalism took place in addition to the thefts. She said her laptop was password-protected and files were secure and backed up. “I think the police are trying to be very kind and reassuring to us at this point.”

Davis said the break-in is strange, given the Chamber office is not a place likely to have cash on hand. “I don’t have any idea why they would break in,” she said.

Davis has not yet replaced her laptop and said those who need to communicate with the Chamber should call the office at (616) 866-2000. A desktop computer and other areas of the Chamber’s offices were left undamaged. Davis said the incident remains under investigation so she is limited to the information she can share. She did say officers gave her no reason to think any other thefts or break-ins occurred during the same time frame.

“Unnerving is a good way to describe it,” Davis said. “It’s just creepy.”

If anyone has information regarding the break-in, the investigating officer is Dave Robinson of the Rockford Police Department. Call (616) 866-9557.

“This is a wonderful community,” said Judy. “We have friendly customers and enjoy the interaction with them. The variety of our merchandise makes it fun!”

Readers are invited to visit DollarVille and experience their wonderful customer service, selection and great pricing. The store is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Santa, police and plenty of smiles marked the seventh annual Shop with a Hero event at the Rockford Meijer Sunday, Dec. 12. All on volunteer time, Rockford police, usually with the help of a spouse or family member, enjoyed helping children choose items from a list of necessities and at least one treasured toy of their choice.

Santa and Mrs. Claus pose with lucky kids who were chosen to participate in this year’s Shop with a Hero event with the City of Rockford Police. Funds come from Meijer and donations from service organizations such as the Rockford Lions and Rockford Rotary clubs. photo by BETH ALTENA

Each Christmas season the officers, assisted by a spouse, friend or family member, help children from Rockford schools choose items such as boots, hats, snowpants, pajamas and more, working off a list of needed items provided by parents or guardians. The Rockford Lions Club, one of the service organizations that donate to Shop with a Hero, also turns out on the day of the event to assist.

According to Lynda Nance, who joined the Rockford Lions in October, the event is just one of many causes the group supports. “My dad was a Lion for over 30 years. When Polly VonEschen invited me to join, I decided it was time,” she said. “All we do is raise money and do good things. It’s a great group and so much fun.”

This year’s Shop with a Hero was the first for Officer Mike Thomas. “It’s fun to shop with other people’s money,” he said. “It’s fun getting things that people need.”

Fifth-grader Zachary Smith said he felt lucky because his Shop with a Hero was Dave Jehnzen, who is Rockford’s D.A.R.E. officer. Smith said he believes the lessons he learned in D.A.R.E. will stay with him all his life. One of the techniques the program taught him is to “give the cold shoulder” when pressured in a bad situation. “You just turn and walk away. You don’t have to say a thing.”

The smile on this girl’s face speaks for itself as she shares a letter to Santa. Photo by BETH ALTENA

Meijer Store Director Phil Morrow said many Meijer stores hold similar events with police, ambulance and fire department personnel. The company annually donates tens of thousands of dollars for the program. “It’s the right thing to do,” Morrow said. “This is touching the community, giving back and helping these families out. These people probably shop here every day.”

Morrow also pointed out that the kids invariably pick out items for someone else, a sibling or friend. “They aren’t just buying things for themselves, they are thinking of their brothers and sisters.”

While children were enjoying snacks and sharing letters with Santa, Morrow took the time to speak to them and gave them one more present, a $5 gift card. “Think of someone else who could use this and give it to them. This is your way to give back, too.”

Morrow had to offer a little more advice to one grateful girl who knew exactly who she had in mind. “You should probably think of someone besides your Shop with a Hero officer to give the card to.”

ROCKFORD LIONS HELPING HANDS—Many Lions were on hand to assist with the Shop with a Hero Sunday, Dec. 12. Here old Lion Bob Winegar is pictured with new Lion Lynda Nance. Winegar helped pick out the colorful Hello Kitty outfit. Photo by BETH ALTENA

BEHIND THE SCENES—Volunteers and officers make sure each child’s items are packed up and go home with the right student. Photo by BETH ALTENA

by CRAIG JAMES 

Meteorologist Craig James, new Squire columnist

When it comes to forecasting the climate, many people say that since forecasters can’t get the weather forecast right for the next couple of days, how can they get the climate forecast right for the next 100 years? (They surely weren’t talking about my forecasts, were they?)

The response given by the climate alarmists is that they don’t have to forecast each day’s weather correctly. Over time, the weather averages out and just predicting the long-term trend of warmer or colder is not as difficult as predicting how much snow will fall from the next snowstorm. Therefore, we can have confidence in the climate forecasts out to the year 2100 and beyond. I don’t buy into that response and here’s why.

We pretty much know and understand all of the physics behind the atmospheric processes that control the short-term weather forecast. We can even construct computer models that do a fairly good job of representing how the atmosphere works over short time periods using the seven basic mathematical equations of motion for fluids. There are some approximations that have to be made when using these equations, but they work fairly well out to a couple of days. However, they do start to break down as they are run forward in time due to a lack of sufficient data and the inherent chaos of the atmosphere.

Once we get out beyond a couple of days, there are additional complicated forces that begin to have an impact on the forecasts, and it is these forces we don’t understand very well and can’t even begin to adequately model in our computers. These natural forces include such things as whether the Atlantic or Pacific oceans are in their cold or warm phase, whether there is an El Niño or La Niña in progress, how temperature changes affect cloud cover, cooling or warming from aerosols, solar influences, and many others.

An example of a natural force that over a long period of time affects the motion of fluids but has no effect in the short term is the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect is what causes our winds to rotate counter-clockwise around a low-pressure system in the northern hemisphere and just the opposite, or clockwise, in the southern hemisphere. Some people believe the Coriolis effect will cause water to rotate counter-clockwise down a drain in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. That is just not true.

I mentioned this while I was on air at TV-8 a few years ago and from the indignant responses I received, you would have thought I had called someone’s mother a bad name. It must be one of those ingrained myths that refuse to die, like the one about raindrops being shaped like teardrops. The water spins down a drain far too quickly and rapidly for the Coriolis force to have an effect. Water can spin down a drain in either direction in either hemisphere.

I had a professor at Penn State who used to say, “The Coriolis force is so small, that it plays no role in determining the direction of rotation of a draining sink any more than it does the direction of a spinning CD.” You can read all about this myth and others on a fun web site he set up called “Bad Meteorology.”

But, back to my point: There are forces that play a large role in how the long-term climate changes, but have no effect on short-term weather events. Whether or not there is an El Niño occurring won’t have any influence on a forecast for tomorrow, but it will have a big influence on a seasonal forecast. And the most important point is that we do not understand and cannot model many of these forces that affect how the climate will change during the next 50 to 100 years. Therefore, given the difficulty in getting the forecast right for the next couple of days, the added complexities of what controls long-term climate make a forecast for the next 100 years… impossible.

Craig James has been retired since July 1, 2008, after 40 years of broadcasting television weather. He was chief meteorologist
at WZZM-TV for 12 years and chief meteorologist at WOOD-TV for 24 years. He is a graduate of Penn State University, where
he received a Centennial Fellowship Award. He was also honored as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Mike Evans

Michael David Evans is an award-winning syndicated journalist who has served as a confidant to leaders in the Middle East for more than two decades. He has appeared on hundreds of network television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Cross Fire, Nightline and The Good Morning Show (Great Britain), and appears frequently on the Fox Network, CNN World News, NBC, ABC and CBS. He has won more than 15 national awards for his prime-time specials based on his books.

Evans’ book, Showdown with Nuclear Iran, became a New York Times and Amazon.com bestseller. He is also the author of 24 books, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, USA Today, Amazon number one and Barnes and Noble.com number one bestseller, The American Prophecies, as well as the New York Times bestseller, Beyond Iraq: The Next Move, and the Time Magazine bestseller, The Return.

Evans has produced 18 documentaries. His most famous, “Let My People Go,” spotlighted Natan Sharansky, who was at the time in a gulag in Russia. Evans asked President Ronald Reagan to seek Sharansky’s release, and the release of some 400 Jewish prisoners from President Mikhail Gorbachev. Evans also worked with a Dutch government official to encourage them to open the doors of the Dutch Embassy in Moscow to the Jews of Russia.

Evans’ newest book, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, is being published by Strang Communications, and had been produced into a network documentary. The documentary contains interviews with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, CIA director James Woolsey, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, General Hugh Shelton, Mort Zuckerman, owner of U.S. News and World Report, UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman, and a host of others.

Evans spoke at the World Summit on Terrorism in Jerusalem (with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister) and to students at the Kennedy School of Law at Harvard University. As a writer, he has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jerusalem Post, The Washington Times and numerous other publications worldwide.

One of Evans’ speeches became an official document in the Congressional Record of the 97th Congress, second session. He was present at the White House signing of the Israeli/PLO Peace Accord, has attended the majority of the Middle East events hosted by the White House, and was invited to the State funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

In February 2003, Evans received the Ambassador Award from the State of Israel during NRB in Nashville, Tenn. He was a keynote speaker at the inaugural Jerusalem World Summit in Jerusalem in October 2003, and joined such notables as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Evans’ wife, Carolyn, is the chairwoman and founder of Christian Woman of the Year Association. Mother Teresa, Ruth Graham, Elizabeth Dole, and other distinguished women are among the recipients who have been honored during the past 15 years. Mike and Carolyn have four children, Michelle, Shira, Rachel and Michael, and five grandchildren.

In 2002, Pastor Doug Bergsma and his wife, Caryn, felt a call to start a church in the Rockford area. At the time they were serving at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville under the leadership of Pastor Duane VanderKlok. With Pastor Duane’s full blessing, the church plant began with 35 people at the Pine Island Elementary School. The church outgrew several temporary facilities over the years as God blessed the work and added new members. In April 2005, the church moved to its current location on Ten Mile Road and now ministers to more than 1,200 people on a weekly basis. For more information, please contact the church office at (616) 866-3377.

Rockford celebrates a school first in volleyball: OK Red champions!

The Rams finished their OK Red schedule and tournament in perfection, not losing a single match to an OK Red opponent in conference play all season. The Rams have played with confidence and poise all season, traits of a successful program and good coaching. When the Rams fell behind in some matches early, there was always a sense of confidence that the team would finish strong and with a victory. With a season high 47 victories so far, one win short of an all-time school record, the Rams have found the formula for success, hard work, preparation, teamwork and an unwavering confidence.

Murphy Heyer (#4) goes up and delivers a kill over an East Kentwood triple block.

Baldwin was recruited as a pitcher. SAU has recently made back-to-back trips to the NAIA World Series. The SAU team was semifinalist in 2008, and was runner-up in 2007. SAU head baseball coach Sam Riggleman has been recognized two times by the NAIA with National Baseball Coach of the Year honors.

In 2009, as a sophomore, Baldwin helped lead the Rams to their first OK Red conference title in 21 years with his outstanding pitching. In 2010, he continued to improve and was rewarded with First Team OK Red All Conference and All District accolades. Baldwin, the hard-throwing “righty,” is also regarded as one of the top pitchers in West Michigan.

In the summer, Baldwin plays travel baseball for Rockford Team Ram. Team Ram is coached by Rockford High School varsity assistant coach Steve Fusee.

Baldwin is the son of Ken and Prisilla Baldwin of Rockford.