VOLUME 167, No. 42 Thursday, October 21, 2021 PRICE $1.
T HE
H AST I NGS
Devoted to the Interests of Barry County Since 1856
Legislature’s failure
jeopardizes the vulnerable
See Editorial on Page 4
Hastings schools plans
for bond request in May
See Story on Page 2
Saxon football repeats
conference championship
See Story on Page 11
Turn apples into applesauce
Food processing pitch part of regional plan
Rebecca Pierce
Editor
With federal money in the offing, collabo-
ration on a region-wide scale is happening
fast – and Barry County got on board Tuesday.
During their committee of the whole meet-
ing, commissioners OK’d a letter of support
for the West Michigan Agricultural
Technologies and Regional Food Systems
Initiative.
This initiative is being driven by Erin
Kuhn, executive director of the West
Michigan Shoreline Regional Development
Commission in Muskegon. Her commission
is one of many economic development orga-
nizations from the west side of the state that
are banding together to seek multimillion-dol-
lar grants.
For this proposal, “the focus is agriculture
food processing,” West Michigan Regional
Planning Commission Director Dave Beetold The Banner Tuesday.
The idea, he said, is to increase the capaci-
ty of farms and food processors and people
who process food.
Why ship the produce – and the jobs
attached to processing it – out of state, Bee
asked.
“Turn apples into applesauce,” he said.
Supporting a proposal for a Build Back
Better grant – part of the U.S. Economic
Development Administration’s portion of the
American Rescue Plan Art funds – does not
commit the county to any specific action. But
it could open up some opportunities for addi-
tional funds, Bee said, if they get the grant.
That’s a big if.
The two-phase grant involves a study first,
then a project phase, Bee said.
And it’s very competitive.
“Probably only 50 will be awarded nation-
wide,” said Bee, who is based on GrandRapids.
In her talking points, Kuhn noted that
Michigan is among the most agriculturally
diverse states in the nation – with more than
9,000 farms in the West Michigan region
alone.
“With a long history of food manufactur-
ing and processing, the region is a prime
location for expanding and growing this sec-
tor,” she wrote. “This is an opportunity for
farmers, food manufacturers, tech providers
and entrepreneurs to capitalize on value-add-
ed product development that will lead to the
establishment and/or expansion of new oper-
ations.”
With more than 300 different raw products
grown locally, Kuhn pointed out, a location
near major Midwest population centers,
abundant fresh water, and the Food,
Agriculture, Research and Manufacturing
accelerator, “West Michigan is uniquelylocated to take advantage of that growth and
stake its claim to being a worldwide leader in
food, agriculture, research and manufacturing
around AgFoodTech.”
The West Michigan Food Processing
Association was created in 2017 to establish
and develop a regional network for food com-
panies and other participants of the food
supply chain.
That WMFPA focus is to connect food
companies with national/international
resources to catapult food systems into mod-
ernized agricultural technologies and innova-
tions, supporting a triple bottom line of eco-
nomic, environmental and social impacts,
Kuhn wrote.
Then, last August, the association and the
Michigan State University Product Center‘Talk of the town’ artist
transforms downtown
with mural
Benjamin Simon
Staff Writer
J. Maizlish Mole stood under his three-
foot-story mural when a woman rolled down
her car window. She said she liked the mural
and she wanted to do something for him. He
didn’t know her and she didn’t know him, but
30 minutes later, she returned with a Coca-
Cola for Mole from Wendy’s.
It is just one of many interactions Mole has
on a daily basis as he finishes the mural on
100 S. Jefferson St.
Every day, about 30 people, Mole estimated,
will stop at the towering black and white map of
the United States. They will stick their heads
out from their car windows and gawk at the
image. They call him “painter guy,” offer words
of encouragement, say thank you and ask ques-
tions about how Mole created it, when he will
finish it and why Alaska isn’t on the map.
“It’s been quite the talk of the town,” said
Chelsey Foster, community president/com-
mercial lender at Commercial Bank.The vision behind a gigantic downtown
mural started five months ago, when
Thornapple Arts Council Executive Director
Megan Lavell visited Allegan. There, she
said, she was blown away by the number of
murals in the small town. She has seen them
in big cities like Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo,
but never in a place the size of Hastings.
When she returned home, she pulled up her
to-do list document and typed in all capital
letters: “How do we get a mural in Hastings?”
“I really believe that, right now, the com-
munity needed something cool, something
exciting to rally around when things are oth-
erwise so divisive and a little disheartening
sometimes,” she said. “What better than a
great piece of art on a three-story building to
liven things up and give people something to
watch and be excited about.”
At first, she tried to achieve the goal by
partnering with the city and applying for a
grant with the state of Michigan. It was
unsuccessful.She sat on the idea for a few months, wait-
ing for the right opportunity.
That’s when she met J. Maizlish Mole, an
artist who had recently moved from London.
They became friends and, somewhere along
the way, Lavell casually asked Mole’s part-
ner, Chloe Oliver, if he had ever done a mural
before.
Mole had never created a mural before, but
he was intrigued by the idea. That same day,
he walked into downtown Hastings, surveyed
the walls and contemplated taking on the
project.
“What an amazing way to introduce myself
to this town, the community and the people
around here,” Mole, 47, said. “What better
way than with a big public art project,
because that’s, like, my jam.”
Mole’s interest in art and maps started long
before he arrived in Hastings. His parents, he
said, were art lovers. His brother is a musi-
cian and his sister is a photographer. Growing
up in Santa Barbara, Calif., Mole said there
wasn’t a time he didn’t think about becoming
an artist.
“I mean it’s not anything special,” he said.
“It was a calling that I felt I had from a pretty
early age.”
He went on to attend college the Parsons
School of Design and the New School in New
York City, before finishing his bachelor’s in
fine arts at Central Saint Martins in London.
After finishing undergrad, he received his
master’s in fine arts from the Slade School of
Fine Art, also in London.
Much like art, maps were a constant in
Mole’s childhood. His brother collected
maps. He came from a “geography house,” he
said. But he had never done his own map
project.
That changed during his early years at
Parsons, when Mole found himself drawn to
the artistry of mapmaking.
“I approached mapping – it’s like a kind of
conceptual exercise for me,” Mole said. “I’mnot especially interested in being a cartogra-
pher, which is like a mathematical, scientific
pursuit. I’m not interested in rendering things
necessarily, perfectly accurate.”
After college, Mole bounced around. He
spent three years in New York City. Then he
spent nine years in Berlin. Then he spent
another 10 in London before landing in
Hastings. Along the way, he performed in
bands as a singer and songwriter played any-
thing from soul to folk to rock.
But he kept creating maps, or “observa-
tional practice drawing,” as he calls them. He
would walk around different cities for weeks,
taking some notes, memorizing the street
turns, the little gas stations, the popular parks- anything that would stick in his head. At the
end of the trip, he would draw a map of the
city from memory. He received commissions
from all across the world, from St. Louis,
Mo., to Edinburgh, Scotland, to the Isle of
Skye, also in Scotland.
“All of the mapping projects I’ve done –
and they’re different from one another – but
all of them are really about rendering some
kind of psychological aspect of geography
into two dimensions, rather than perfectly,
mathematically, accurately representing some-
thing in any objective kind of way,” he said.
That’s part of the reason Mole envisioned
a map when he looked up at the brick wall on
the building formerly known as the Union
Block and Secondhand corners building in
Hastings. After walking downtown during
that day in May, Mole went home and spent
the next few nights huddled in his studio,
carefully sketching out the image of America.
Then he placed it under his desk mat.
Every few days, he would turn over the
desk mat, look at it and decide if he still liked
it. Three weeks passed and he told Lavell he
would do the project. Another two months
Police locate
missing woman’s
car, unidentified
remains
Taylor Owens
Staff Writer
Officers in a Michigan State Police
helicopter spotted Rachel Hazen’s vehi-
cle, the remains of a body nearby, in a
soybean field in Maple Grove Township
around 9 a.m. Tuesday.
The Barry County
Sheriff’s Office and
Michigan State Police
said Wednesday that
they are working to
identify the remains.
But Hazen’s son,
Gabe Ulrich Jr., told
The Banner that
police confirmed her
identity and said
Hazen’s body was
found near a tree
stand. He said they
believe she was climbing up the stand to
clear her head, when she accidentally fell
about 20 feet to the ground, breaking her
neck and dying upon impact.
The sheriff’s office said the case
remains under investigation.
Witnesses told police they last saw Hazen
July 21. She was driving her 2005 silver Ford
Escape, which was missing a license plate.
According to reports obtained by The
Banner, police were first notified of
Hazen’s disappearance at 11:05 a.m. July
26, when a friend, Casey Bidelman, 40, of
Battle Creek, called police from Hazen’s
home in the Thornapple Lake Estates
mobile home park.
Bidelman said the place appeared to
have been ransacked.
An officer arrived to find a number of
Hazen’s friends and Thornapple Lake
Estates staff at her residence. The officer
found “the cupboards in the house had
been gone through as if someone were
searching for something,” but he did not
see any signs of a struggle or an abduction.
The last time family members saw
Hazen was on July 21, when she and her
18-year-old son went to her friend’s resi-
dence in Nashville. Hazen dropped off her
dog with her friend, asking her to watch
the dog while she was in rehab.
Hazen’s friend said she appeared to be
intoxicated; she was slurring her words
and difficult to understand. The friend told
the officer Hazen should not have been
driving in that condition.
Hazen’s son was helping her seek a rehab
facility, but the places they contacted were
either full or wouldn’t accept her insurance.
So they made an appointment with Barry
County Mental Health for the next day.
After that, Hazen and her son went to
her eldest son’s house in Baltimore
Township, and all three of her sons talked
to her about getting help.
The three boys told the officer their
mother was “in bad shape and in the
wrong state of mind.”
One son said Hazen gave him a copy of
her tax returns and the title to her vehicle,
but she did not say why she was doing that.
He said he put the title back in the vehicle.
They told police she left them around 1
p.m., and that was the last time they saw her.Delton reviews new elementary plans
Taylor Owens
Staff Writer
The Delton Kellogg Board of Education
reviewed plans for reconstruction of part of
the elementary school during its meeting
Monday.
According to project manager Todd
Champion of Christman Construction, the
project will go out for bid this winter. They
plan to demolish the original building, which
dates back to 1936, next summer, with con-
struction starting on the new building in the
fall of 2022.
Superintendent Kyle Corlett said the proj-
ect is set to be finished in November 2023.
While he said they had hoped to have it ready
before school starts in September, issues withlabor and supply shortages in the industry
pushed a conservative timeline into the school
year.
“Material costs and wait times are fluctuat-
ing daily,” Champion told the board.
The total construction estimate is currently
$10.88 million.
While the original building will be demol-
ished, additions will remain and will connect
to the new structure.
The new building will include fourth grade
classrooms; special education classrooms; a
state-of-the-art science, technology, engi-
neering and math classroom; an extended
learning area; administrative offices; and a
full-size gym that includes a stage, Corlett
said.During construction, administrative
employees will work out of the high school,
and classrooms will be moved to other parts
of the elementary.
Corlett said the new building was designed
to keep the look of the original, based on
input from focus groups in the community.
“The feedback we received was that the
building should have the same historical
appearance, as well as have classrooms pre-
pared for 21st century learning with plenty of
space, technology, and include accommoda-
tions for students with special needs,” Corlett
said.This preview of the Delton Kellogg Elementary School reconstruction was made by
architect Ben Perdock of GMB Architecture + Engineering. (Photos provided)
Police have been
searching for
Rachel Hazen,
41, of Nashville,
since July 26.J. Maizlish Mole talks about the mural he has created on the wall of the former
Union Block and Secondhand Corners building. Mole spent days working on the intri-
cate detail of the coastlines. (Photo by Ben Simon)See ARTIST, page 2
See FOOD, page 2
See DELTON, page 2