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July 15, 2007
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Members of the Leadership Bay County class line up in back of their proud production, a limestone gabion wall and tri-sail welcome sign on the east entrance to the city just off the Veterans Memorial Bridge ramp. It's A Gabion Wall
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Bay City's maritime heritage sailed into the future at 5 p.m. last Wednesday.
That's when the 19 members of the recent class of Leadership Bay County showed off their pride and joy -- a new welcome sign greeting visitors to the city.
"This is a real symbol of what we think Bay City is all about," said Joni Boye-Beaman, assistant dean of the college of arts and behavioral sciences at Saginaw Valley State University. "This was a fun project, and, of course, original."
Chuck Brooks, executive director of the Bay Area Family Y, commented: "We learned a lot about ourselves while accomplishing this project." Mr. Brooks and Ms. Boye-Beaman were co-chairs of the project.
All told it was about a $20,000 project, plus un-calculated amounts in time of volunteers and donated materials, project officials estimated.
Looking on approvingly as a ribbon was cut with a huge pair of aluminum shears, crafted by machinists at General Motors Bay City PowerTrain, were downtown mavens Paul Rowley, John and Judy Lore, Bob Sarow, Mitzi Dimitroff of the Jennison Boathouse, the State Theatre's Mike Bacigalupo, Historical Society Chairman Eric Jylha, Chris Girard of Do-All, and many others.
Besides being a tribute to historical maritime history, the sign is a work of art. Actually, it is a gabion wall comprised of 16 cubic yards of limestone in a rubber-coated steel mesh cage, called a "gabion cage." The gabion is a device used to contain earth or other materials in construction projects.
Tacking along in back of the four foot high cages packed with chalky limestone are three simulated sloops, complete with mainsail and jib.
Action is even provided when the heavy nylon sails flap in the breeze. The masts are aluminum set in concrete and secured with cables and turnbuckles.
The sign project was designed by Wigen-Tincknell-Meyer and Associates, architects,which donated much of the work, as did the Electrical Workers Union that installed the lights and other work donated by various participants in the project.
The limestone came in by rail from an Alpena quarry to Kawkawlin to Specification Stone, according to Jim Vaillancourt, stone company owner. Actually, the sign is comprised of 19.84 tons of 4-12 inch limestone rip-rap, he said.
R.D. Prime, the general contractor, trucked the stone downtown and unloaded it into the steel mesh cages from VanPoppelen Bros., fabricated by Taunt Electric, Gladwin, thus creating the gabion wall.
Letters 14 inches high were crafted by Klender Signs, Consumers Energy trimmed trees, Heinlein Awning made the sails.
The new sign is the latest edition to perhaps the most under-appreciated, unknown park in the city, the Bay County Bicentennial Park.
The park was established in the bicentennial year of 1976 by a committee headed by Harry Roznowski. A 76-foot metal spire towers over a monument base with plaques paying tribute to Gen. Thaddeus Kosciusczko, the Marquis de Lafayette, Count Casimer Pulaski and other foreign volunteers who aided the United States in the American Revolution two hundred years before.
The spire, base and plaques were installed in the enthusiasm on the 200th anniversary of the nation's founding. Veterans groups and many community entities such as companies, clubs and organizations contributed to the $40,000 project.
Dick Somalski, of Bay Landscaping, checked out the plantings he was responsible for more than 30 years ago in the mini-park. "These are getting old, just like the trees we planted downtown in the early 1980s, and we are going to have to think about new ones soon," he said. Ravages of weather, and salt, in the case of downtown trees, cause deterioration of the trees, he noted.
Mr. Somalski paid high tribute to the Bay City Garden Club for tending the mini-park and refreshing the flowers and bushes as well as in Veterans Park. "They do a fabulous job and we don't recognize them enough," he commented.
Plenty of recognition is due the welcome sign committee, Mike Seward and the sponsoring Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, silent auction donors, volunteers, designers, contractors, sign makers and others.
Leadership Bay County's Class of 2007: Candace Bales, Bay City Downtown Management Board; Joni Boye-Beaman, Saginaw Valley State University; Thomas Begin, Marsha Brown, Consumers Energy; Brenda Biggs, COPOCO Community Credit Union; Chuck Brooks, Bay Area Family YMCA; LeAnn Bruzewski, Wolverine Bank; Joy Butler, Bay Arts Council; Jill Callahan, LaSalle Bank; Daniel Couveau, Independent Bank; Erin Dunkle, American Red Cross East Shoreline Chapter; Larry Ehrlinger, Citizens Bank; Robert Loiselle, Bay Regional Medical Center; Jerome Lombardo, Bay City Public Schools; Ronald Rachwitz, Weinlander Fitzhugh; Scott Rector, Rowley's Wholesale; Jo Ellen Strieter, Bay Area Chamber of Commerce; William Tillen, Chemical Bank; Clark Woody, S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.
Major donors were: AT&T, ATI Group, Bay Area Community Foundation, Bierlein Companies Foundation, Bay Special Care Hospital, Brandle Roofing, COPOCO Community Credit Union, Champagne, Inc., Chemical Bank, Consumers Energy, Downtown Development Authority, Downtown Management Board, Roger W. Hill DDS, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), K-R Metal Engineers, Jacobs Plumbing & Heating, LaSalle Bank, Leadership Bay County Alumni, Liquid Calcium Chloride Sales, Dr. Robert Malecki DDS, Northern Industrial Supply, Personnel Inc., R.D. Prime General Contractor, S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., Valley Electrical Contractors, Inc., Wanigas Federal Credit Union, Wigen Ticknell Meyer & Associates, Wolverine Fireworks Display, XLT Engineering, Inc.###
Joni-Boye-Beamon. Chuck Brooks, and Candace Bales, right, team up to cut the ribbon dedicating the welcome sign at the east end of Veterans Memorial Bridge.
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