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LWV LAKE MICHIGAN REGION ILO CONFERENCE 2024

The Lake Michigan Region of the LWV held a conference in Manistee October 25-26, 2024. The Lake Michigan Region is an Inter league Organization of four member states (Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin) and over 60 local leagues, including Grand Traverse Area League. The Lake Michigan Region focuses on the health and well-being of citizens residing in Lake Michigan watershed states as well as the vitality of their respective economies which are directly connected to the health and vitality of Lake Michigan. Christina Schlitt, Ann Swaney, Ingrid Brophy and Carrie Olmsted were in attendance from our League. Carrie Olmsted was the LWVGTA official voting delegate. Tricia Denton from Leelanau was elected the new President and Christina Schlitt was elected as a Nominating Committee Member.

The keynote speaker at dinner was J. Carl Ganter, Co-Founder and Director of Circle of Blue, offering solutions for systems change at local-to-global levels for the world’s freshwater challenges. A presentation on the Enbridge Line 5 Pipeline, which crosses the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, was provided by Skip Pruss, Senior Legal Advisor of For the Love of Water (FLOW). Mr. Pruss discussed Line 5 history and litigation, including FLOW’s involvement, emphasizing the existential threat a release from the pipeline poses. There was also a presentation by Alexis DeGabriele, an aquatic biologist from the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians (LRBOI), Natural Resources Department, about the project to protect, preserve and restore manoomin in Michigan to enhance ecosystem health and benefit present and future generations. Manoomin, Michigan's wild rice, has been designated the state’s official native grain.

Early attendees at the conference, plus some members who drove down from TC specifically for it, were wowed by a tour of the Arcadia Marsh Nature Preserve. Knowledgeable tour guides were supplied by the Grand Traverse Regional Nature Conservancy. What a beautiful and special place.

Local Women Making History

March 21, 2023

To celebrate Women’s History Month, the LWVGTA, in partnership with the Traverse Area District Library (TADL) and Traverse Area Community Media (TACM), will present a program focused on women in leadership.

Three local women leaders join together in a panel discussion; Ms. Brandie Ekren, Executive Director of Traverse City Light and Power, Ms. Michele Howard, Director of the Traverse Area District Library, and Ms. Rebecca Pierce, Executive Editor of the Traverse City Record Eagle. What made these women leaders? Who were their mentors? What challenges did they face as they rose through the ranks of their respective organizations? We hope this will be a fun and enlightening conversation.

The program recording can be viewed at the TADL YouTube page at Local Women Making History

A Day in the Life of a Legislator, January 15, 2024

Michigan House Representative Betsy Coffia (D 103rd)

Michigan House Representative John Roth (R 104th)

Moderator: Jean Howard

A program focused on the challenges of legislators working together to bring needed funding and projects to the communities they represent. Democrat Representative Betsy Coffia and Republican Representative John Roth, both serving in the Michigan House of Representatives, shared their experiences as Michigan Legislators.

Watch the Legislator program at Traverse Area Community Media here.

From Publication to the Public: A Library Book’s Path to the Reader

Tuesday March 19, 2024

This program focused on how a library book gets to the reader’s hands with discussion of the process of publication, process of library selection, censorship, and book banning efforts.

Presenters are: Michele Howard, Director of Traverse Area District Library (TADL), Stephie Luyt, Elementary Library Coordinator for Traverse City Area Public Schools, and Karrie Zeits, a governmental law attorney. Jaquelyn Richer, was the ASL Interpreter.

Watch a recording here on the LWVGTA FaceBook page

In the News!

A recent article in the Northern Express interviewed the local League presidents from four chapters: our own Grand Traverse Area, plus Petoskey, Leelanau and Manistee. It recaps the national League history and shares the beginnings of each of the local league chapters.

"BEYOND THE BALLOT MEET THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS CHAPTERS OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN

BY KIERSTIN GUNSBERG | MARCH 16, 2024

It was the spring of 1919, and president of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Carrie Chapman Catt was chomping at the bit. Even as the organization was celebrating its 50th anniversary, it still hadn’t completed its mission of equal voting rights for women. NAWSA had made headway, sure, having already won the right to vote in a handful of states, but the endgame was a constitutional amendment guaranteeing all women across the country that right."

Youth Voting Round table

The LWVGTA had the privilege of attending a Youth Voting Round table following the Defending Democracy Town Hall in September. A group of Traverse City HS students and AP Government Teacher, Paige Paul, were part of the discussion. These Round table discussions were held throughout the state with SOS Benson and Deputy SOS, Aghogho Edevbie to engage and empower the your voters in Michigan.

LWV Research Leads to Michigan Women's Hall of Fame

It began as an effort to salute hard work by the LWV-Grand Traverse Area encouraging a successful YES Vote to fund a new library in the mid-1990s. Award-winning author Heather Shumaker wove this story into her 2022 book, Beyond Books: Stories of Traverse Area Libraries 1960-2020, which included another story of dedicated women who left their mark on the Traverse City landscape.

The Traverse City Ladies’ Library Association (LLA) started in 1869 when Traverse Township was just a "scruffy little logging community". These ladies provided library services and a large public meeting hall to the community for more than 30 years. For this effort, the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, which “honors distinguished women, both historical and contemporary” with Michigan connections, is awarding them this ultimate recognition.

Now the Traverse City LLA ranks up there with Mary Free Bed Guild, Aretha Franklin, Helen Milliken, Jennifer Granholm, Sojourner Truth, Betty Ford, Judith Karandjeff, Rosa Parks, and other luminaries.

Using research developed for Beyond Books, GTA League members Anne Magoun and Ann Swaney submitted the nomination for the LLA. As one of the LLA founders said: “Our aim is not a selfish one. All the toil and endeavor of these years has not been for our own aggrandizement or pleasure, but to accomplish a good work for our community …” (Martha E. Cram Bates, Grand Traverse Herald, 12/12/1878).

They would have been good LWV members, right?

--from LWVMI League Links, November 23, 2023