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www.mybaycity.com August 8, 2004
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Some Bay City stories are told through the arts in Wenonah Park, personified by Maestro Leo Najar and his baton. Photo by Tom Kaekel from the City of Bay City 2004 Calendar.

What's Bay City's Best Story? Tales of Hometown Heroes Past and Present

Bay City's Out in Front on Storytelling, Latest Corporate Marketing Buzz

August 8, 2004       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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      What's Bay City's greatest story, most interesting historical figure, most compelling tale?

      Is it Chief O-ge-maw-ge-ke-to, elected chief of the Chippewa tribe for 30 years straight, using his amazing oratorical skills during the Treaty of Saginaw negotiations, wearing an Army colonel's brave blue coat with brass buttons given him by President Jefferson?

      We have to highly consider James G. Birney, campaigning for President in 1844 from his home at Fourth and Water, changing the course of history with 15,000 votes in New York, denying the nation's top office to Senator Henry Clay;

      General Benjamin Partridge, perhaps, local lumberman and sheriff, joining the Union as a private, battling Rebs on Little RoundTop with Colonel Chamberlain of Maine and trekking to Appomattox with Grant to help end the Civil War?

      Dewitt Brawn, 14-year-old son of the lighthouse keeper at the rivermouth, in 1875 devising the rear range light system still used aroundthe world to guide ships to safety?

      Perhaps the world's best recognized folklore figure, Paul Bunyan, is based mainly on the exploits of Bay City's terrible timber feller Fabian "Joe" Fournier, knocked into legend on the Third Street ferrydock in 1876;

      How about Harry Defoe climbing down from the tower of Park School and quitting his principal's job, inspired to start one of the nations' most noted shipyards on the Saginaw River?

      Is it financier James E. Davidson, boldly striding down Washington Avenue in 1931 with millions in a black bag to save the bank from failure?

      Jeanette Lempke Sovereign, taking off from James Clements Airport to break flying records for women pilots?

      Les Staudacher building Gold Cup racing motorboats in a Kawkawlin garage that stunned the nation?

      Or Bay City's Bill Hewitt leaping high at Soldier Field to flip a pass to Bronko Nagurski, streaking to the endzone for a key Chicago Bears victory, and gaining enshrinement as an NFL Alltime Allpro?

      General Oscar Westover, perhaps, Bay City native and first chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps, directing man's first ascent into the stratosphere aboard a balloon, the gondola of which was made by The Dow Chemical Co.?

      Maybe Ed Jablonski, building on boyhood Polish language newspaper experience in Bay City to write dozens of noted books on aerial combat and music legends like Gershwin in New York?

      Other Bay Cityans like Pianist Kevin Cole, perhaps the best-ever interpreter of Gershwin music, dancer/singer and musical superstar Madonna Ciccone, world class iceboaters and sailors Meade and Jan Gougeon who have revolutionized the use of wood boat construction worldwide with their epoxy fastening methods; international boxing promoter and movie subject Art Dore, all of whom have their share of worldwide fame -- and their stories.

            Storytelling is back in vogue among academics and corporate types alike.

      Bay City, as a corporate entity seeking its place in the world of tourism and economic vibrancy, also has a story to tell. And that story, comprised of a series of vignettes of its citizens past and present, is collectively a verygood and fascinating one.

      Seminars and international programs like the Bard School on Clare Island, County Mayo, Ireland, teach that the essence of communication is the story ... and how it is told. That's how your message gets across, howthe sale is made, how you promote the value of your organization or the interesting aspects of your community.

      Nothing new here; bards and jesters, as well as priests and mystics, have been advising the powerful since time immemorial. Those who craft the story, the message, thus gain their own security and a measure of prestige and reflected glory.

      In the past few years the stories of Bay City have been emerging under the leadership of Gay McInerney of the Bay County Historical Society and Shirley Roberts of the Bay Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

      More may surface under the collective wisdom of participants in an upcoming Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR) symposium on Bay County history at Saginaw Valley State University. Or perhaps in a documentary about Bay City's part in the Paul Bunyan legends, under production by a Minneapolis independent filmmaker.

      There are more stories, of course, many yet to emerge. Andy Karpus, who led the 1937 Los Angeles Bulldogs to an undefeated AFL season and claimed the world pro football championship; William Clements, whose book collecting in Bay City formed the basis for one of the world's premier libraries of Americana; the Sovereign brothers, Otto and William, marketing a world-famed ready-cut home business from a single small ad in a magazine; or one of dozens more local persons of accomplishment whose exploits are emerging from the mists of time and obscurity. And don't forget the ghosts and legendary tales, even if partially apocryphal, for their power to stir emotions.

      If you notice more large tour buses and trolleys driving slowly around town it's for good reason. One of a cadre of perhaps a dozen storytellers is aboard that bus or trolley, enthralling visitors with tales of Bay City. In some ways, our future is our past, and the stories need to be told over and over to larger and larger crowds. Perhaps we need a new motto: If you tell it, they will come.###



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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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