VOLUME 167, No. 23 Thursday, June 10, 2021 PRICE $1.

1

THE

HASTINGS

Devoted to the Interests of Barry County Since 1856

Medical

examiner’s

view of

COVID count

Rebecca Pierce

Editor

Barry County saw a surge in its number of

deaths last year, but exactly how many were

caused by COVID-19 remains unclear, the

county’s medical examiner told county com-

missioners Tuesday.

The county experienced a 13.5-percent

increase in deaths in 2020, but whether those

were a direct result of COVID “will be some-

thing that the state determines,” Dr. Joyce

deJong said. “ ...I don’t have access to every

death certificate and, in the state of Michigan,

the medical examiner doesn’t scrutinize every

death that occurs. So I don’t know that. “

On Monday, the Barry-Eaton District

Health Department reported 19 active cases of

COVID-19 in the county and a total of 67

deaths since the virus was confirmed here a

year ago last spring.

Commissioner Dave Jackson asked deJong

about the reliability of the COVID-19 num-

bers that have been reported by the state. “The

one comment that we heard continually

throughout the year, a lot of times with skep-

ticism or scoffing, is the COVID numbers

reported by the state. ... Can you explain that

process on how we come up with that num-

ber?”

deJong replied: “I had direct communica-

tion with the state registrar Jeff Duncan (of

the Michigan Department of Health and

Human Services) and I had the same question:

How are you coming up with the numbers?

“If the death certificate said that it was

COVID, it was considered a COVID death. If

it didn’t say that, and it was a natural death ...

through a separate database they identified

that they (the deceased) had had a positive

COVID test within 30 days of their death,

Fire chief dies after

station rededication

Taylor Owens

Staff Writer

Prairieville Township Fire Chief Robert

Pence died early Wednesday, just two days

after learning of a special honor.

Members of the Prairieville Township Fire

Department organized a surprise dedication

Monday evening, when the fire station was

officially renamed to the Chief Robert Pence

Station.

Pence said, when he was invited to the sta-

tion Monday night, he expected to drink cof-

fee and chat with his colleagues.

But when he arrived to see a new sign with

his name on the station, a small crowd of peo-

ple, a Hastings Banner reporter and a TV

news camera, Pence said he was both shocked

and humbled.

Pence, 72, had been member of the depart-

ment for 33 years, the assistant chief for 26

years and the chief since September 2020.

Four plead guilty in Royal Coach arson

Taylor Owens

Staff Writer

Four men have pleaded guilty to breaking

into the Royal Coach building before it burned

down Oct. 7, 2020.

Keigan Sochor, 22, of Hastings, was sen-

tenced to prison after pleading guilty to entry

with intent, and preparation to burn the prop-

erty.

Sochor will serve between three and 10

years in prison, Judge Michael Schipper

ordered. But, after 18 months, he may be con-

sidered for boot camp, the judge said.

Developing/saving

small-town America

See Editorial on Page 4

Vikings take district

at TK in 13 innings

See Story on Page 12

Lafey murder case

delayed again

See Story on Page 5

See FIRE CHIEF, page 4 See COUNT, page 5

See ARSON, page 5

Last local high school commencement

Delton Kellogg 2021

grads take the field

Rebecca Pierce

Editor

A verbal class history offered to 71 Delton

Kellogg High School graduates last Thursday

capped an eventful, perhaps historic, K-

career.

After all, not every high school graduating

class experiences a pandemic in their senior

year.

Graduating senior Evelyn Zettelmaier

reflected on starting school as kindergartners

and how incredibly terrifying school had

seemed then, “no parents or siblings within

arm’s reach, but we were alone – together.

Eventually, school was something to look

forward to ... because of friends.”

Then came middle school, she remarked,

and “duh, duh, duhn!” – saying the sounds for

dramatic effect – school was “new and scary

and unfamiliar all over again.

“But we had each other. We grew together.”

In the years to come, “we suffered together,

we laughed together, we danced together, we

celebrated together. ... But there were still a

few more leaps.”

They experienced the loss of a classmate

in their sophomore year, and then the COVID-

19 pandemic began during their junior year.

“What seemed like the end of the world,”

she said, “went on for nearly a year and a

half.”

“And we made it,” Zettelmaier told her

classmates. “Thirteen years of friends,

memories, growth. It went by in the blink of

an eye. How close we have grown. How far

we have come.”

The 55-minute program concluded that

eventful academic career, which was filled

with challenges and uncertainty the students

acknowledged in their remarks.

Salutatorian Lexi Morris, reflecting on

spending the entirety of their senior year in a

pandemic, said they learned to have “gratitude

for the little things.”

“Being isolated from the people I love

made me sorry I ever took them for granted,”

Morris said.

“Stand tall, be proud and go forth ... Be

present in the moment,” she advised.

Valedictorian Bradley Bunch offered “a

special thank you to all the teachers and

administrators who navigated us through.”

Going into freshmen year, he joked, “We

already knew everything.” Then, each year,

they learned more and “this year has taught us

to think outside the box ... and that not every

problem should be addressed head-on.”

It was a year filled with uncertainty, he

added, but the class response to it “shows we

have matured.”

They have learned to play the best game

they can with the hand they have been dealt,

Bunch concluded.

Marsha Bassett, longtime Delton resident

who served on the school board and is now

president of the Delton Kellogg Education

Foundation, was the keynote speaker.

“That was a tough act to follow!” Bassett

said of the student speakers who preceded her.

In her address, Bassett focused on the

advice she has gleaned from her adult children

and others who recently graduated.

Her youngest daughter, two years out of

Delton Kellogg High School, advised, “When

Evelyn Zettelmaier takes flight after she gets a carnation at the conclusion of the

ceremony Thursday night. (Photo by Rebecca Pierce)

See GRADUATION, page 3

Keigan Sochor

The Royal Coach building, which had been scheduled for renovation as an upscale

housing complex, burned down Oct. 7. (File photo)

Local internet outage not part of national glitch

Taylor Owens

Staff Writer

Residents of the Maple Valley area lost

their home and cell phone internet for several

hours Tuesday – but it wasn’t part of a global

outage that was widely reported early

Wednesday.

Vogtmann Engineering, Inc. President Rick

Vogtmann said the outage was due to work on

the local fiber lines by AT&T.

Vogtmann, an Alger-based company that

leases the lines from AT&T to provide inter-

net service, said the maintenance to the lines

was supposed to last from midnight to 7 a.m.

Tuesday.

But Vogtmann said AT&T told him the

work took longer than expected, and internet

service wasn’t restored until around 10:30 or

11 a.m.

AT&T officials could not be reached for

comment.

Even if the internet had been working, res-

idents would not have been able to visit many

of the world’s most popular websites early

Wednesday morning.

San Francisco network company Fastly

experienced a glitch that caused sites run by

Reddit, Twitch, The New York Times and

more to go offline for about an hour.

The company reported the glitch occurred

because of a bug in a recent software update.

After the update was released, a single cus-

tomer made a routine change to their personal

settings, which unintentionally caused a chain

reaction that brought down the websites,

according to a statement by the company.

Robert Pence is surrounded by current and former members of Prairieville Township

Emergency Services (front row, from left) Mykal Gerrou, Pence; (middle) Tyler

Brownell, Mary Herzog; (back) Mike Garrison, Don Haneckow, Ron Herzog, Richard

Garrison, Zach Koon and Cassie Flick.