By Bill Diem
One day after I had my pick-up hauled to the shop to replace the starter that let me down during a fishing trip, I waited for my wife to take me home from downtown Newberry. From 5:38 to 5:54 p.m. I sat on the comfortable bench in front of the Newberry News and counted the cars that passed on Newberry Avenue.
Going north, 20 cars and 19 pick-ups passed. Going south, I counted 34 cars and 20 pick-up trucks. Those are the facts. I don’t have any idea how to interpret them.
Still, I like to start with facts. One question I had the other day, talking with the friend who drove me back from my dead pick-up, was this: What are Newberry’s strong points to attract investment, new residents, etc.?
The big weak point is obvious. We can’t easily move our county seat to be on a Great Lake, like St. Ignace, the Soo, Munising, Manistique, Escanaba, and Marquette.
But here are some facts.
1. Newberry has the best small-town newspaper in the state.
Marty Walsh wrote a poem praising the Newberry News in the Aug, 15 edition. It was lovely. The Newberry News was in the Fretz family for nearly 100 years, and in the Diem family for 30 years, and it is now in the Stiffler family, where it has been judged the best small town weekly in the state for the past two years. Carol and Steve work hard to give Newberry the best, and they are nice enough that they keep good workers and attract good people to write up news that the community will care about.
2. Northern Wings and Louisiana-Pacific.
One is a high-tech company, building parts for satellites and rocket ships. The other is the latest in a long line of industries in Newberry that transform our primary material—trees—into products people need. We know how to work.
3. The prison and the hospital.
These are essential to our community, employing hundreds of people, and providing services to our community and to the State of Michigan. It is true that the prison isn’t the same as when we had the State Hospital. In those days, we had a lot of doctors, which raised our average educational level. And the top people at the prison are always moving along to other prisons, which limits their putting down roots here. The hospital is undergoing change. Nothing like the old days, when people had babies there. The former editor here, my brother Jim, spent a few weeks there recently and was well treated by the nurses, but former editor Nancy had a hard time finding doctors and medical advice. I have long been a fan of Canadian-style national health care to replace the for-profit American system. It only gets good in America when we are old enough for Medicare.
4. Two banks and a credit union.
These are run by people who know the territory and support growth. When I go in, the cashiers compete with their smiles to get me to come their way.
So, Newberry has a good economic base. To grow, everyone in his or her own circle can do the best they can to make Newberry more attractive, but for public initiatives, here is my idea:
Put a whole bunch of eggs in the Newberry High School basket. Make it so junior high kids want to go to Newberry, not Manistique, Engadine, Grand Marais, homeschool, or church school. High school has always been a pole, like the North Pole. We are attracted to poles. Newberry’s class of 1964 just had their 60th reunion; they came back like salmon. Sports is an important part of school, but not everything. We need art, drama, writing, language, dreaming of a better future, too. Go Indians.
