Chapman Birthday Bash A Success
by Barbara Mastriania
NORTH BEND – Chapman Township celebrated it’s 195th birthday Saturday with a huge birthday bash, a community picnic that was open to all of western Clinton County.
The picnic celebration was the brainchild and largely organized by Chapman Township secretary Beth Whitty who with a group of volunteers put it all together. Chapman Township provided hot dogs, hamburgs and sodas and water. The rest of the food came from western Clinton County residents.
The celebration featured music by veteran band Bud & the Dynamics and by newcomer Drocton Hill making it’s debut. The Dynamics will celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2015. The band features originators Bud Hallberg and Paul Mills (Mills was not at Chapman Saturday) and Wayne Stoltz and Ron Jones and Gary Eberhard. Kelly Whitty is the newest musician to join the group.
Drocton Hill features Richard Davenport and Jake Kormanec. The band is named Drocton Hill because Kormanec and Davenport practice in a garage on Drocton Hill in East Renovo. Davenport was heavily influenced by the late Ken Tarr, who was a member of the band Whiskey Springs along with his cousin Craig Tarr, Mike Miller and Gordy Scrimshaw who sometimes still plays guitar and sings for his church. Kormanec’s mother is Heather Kormanec who was taking zillions of photos of her son’s debut and Davenport’s grandmother is Alice Tarr who grilled hot dogs and hamburgers for the picnic.
And it featured a crowd pleasing reptile presentation by Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland zoo keeper Hannah Gerristen who introduced Madagascar hissing cock roaches, an emperor scorpion, a toad, a rat, a turtle, a dwarf crocodile named Kevin, an Asian water monitor and a 30 pound boa constrictor.
Gerristen and her reptiles had the audience spellbound. She’s been a zookeeper with Clyde Peeling Reptiland two years and was a reptile volunteer prior to that. Volunteers clean the cages and feed the reptiles. Most zoo keepers have a degree in biology and the volunteer work helps toward the degree.
Chapman resident, retired teacher and area historian Charlie Barnum presented a slide program featuring history of the township, again drawing much interest from picnic goers.
Children attending participated in various games and adults socialized with friends and visitors.
Attendees included local officials and business people, residents of Chapman and surrounding western Clinton County municipalities, charter Chapman Fire Company member Gordon “Ding” Kriner and Janice Lavanture who, a former resident who now resides in South Carolina.
