Local News

Every month St. Clair County Community Mental Health (CMH) recognizes individuals and / or teams for their extraordinary contributions to the Rights Protection System, which protects the human rights of individuals with a mental illness. Individuals and teams are recognized for demonstrating dignity and respect to individuals with mental illness, for innovation and creativity that resulted in improved service outcomes, for enriching or enhancing a recipient’s recovery/discovery journey, and for taking actions to strengthen communication and cooperation throughout the Rights Protection System.   Award recipients receive a letter of congratulations, certificate of recognition, “Rights Champion” tumbler, and gift certificate to the Sail-In Café & Convenience Store. In addition, “Rights Champions” are highlighted on the CMH Facebook page and are eligible for the 2018 individual/team of the year awards.    The October Team of the Month is the Wells Group Home, which is operated by IMPACT. Members of this team include:

• Melissa Cope
• Amber DeWulf
• Michael Fetterly
• BreAnna Lee
• Chelsea Lee
• Kimberly Moore
• Megan Smith
• Dustin Smith
• James Talbot
• Pam Zimmerman

The November Team of the Month is Residential Services staff of both CMH and Blue Water Developmental Housing (BWDH). Members of this team include:

• Kathy Baker (BWDH)
• Ellen Drowns (CMH)
• Kathleen Gallagher (CMH)
• Karen Recker (CMH)
• Sara Storm (CMH)
• Katie Volpe (CMH)

Congratulations to these Rights Champions!

A recent article in Campus Safety Magazine talks about the increase in Vaping by more than 10% over the last year in 8th graders, 10th graders, and 12th graders. This year’s study included responses from 44,482 students at 392 public and private schools and found 37.3 percent of twelfth graders reported “any vaping” in the past 12 months, compared to 27.8 percent in 2017. It is the biggest year-toyear increase in substance use ever recorded in the survey’s 44 years. Vaping among eighth and tenth graders also increased from 13.3 percent to 17.6 percent and 23.9 percent to 32.3 percent, respectively. The increase in vaping equates to 1.3 million more teens vaping within a single year, reports ABC News. “The younger someone is when they first take a drug, the more vulnerable they are to developing an addiction in the future,” said survey contributor Dr. Richard Miech. “The teen brain is still developing and is, therefore, more vulnerable to the negative effects of substances, including nicotine. Nicotine primes the brain to the rewarding effects of other drugs.” Please have a conversation with your children about the hazards of vaping.

Sen. Dan Lauwers on Tuesday announced his Senate committee assignments for the 100th Legislature.  Lauwers has been assigned two committee leadership roles. He will chair the Energy and Technology Committee and serve as vice chair of the Insurance and Banking Committee.  In addition, Lauwers will serve as a member of the committees on Agriculture, Economic and Small Business Development, Government Operations, Regulatory Reform, and Transportation and Infrastructure.  “The committees are where legislators work with members on both sides of the aisle and examine bills in detail before recommending them to the full Senate,” said Lauwers, R-Brockway Township. “It is a critical part of the process of a bill becoming law, and I’m excited to be asked to serve on committees of significance to the Thumb of Michigan. I look forward to working with my colleagues on these committees.”  A full list of Senate committees and their memberships will be available soon online at www.MiSenateGOP.com. Click on the Committees tab.

McLaren Port Huron invites women in any stage of cancer treatment to gain confidence through their cancer journey with our new, free program, Beauty and Healing. This program takes place the fourth Thursday of the month at 1 p.m. in the McLaren Port Huron Jefferson Building, 1320 Washington Avenue, Port Huron. There is no meeting in December.  Beauty and Healing is designed for women undergoing cancer treatment. The program will focus on skin care, makeup application, and using scarves and hats as head coverings. Women participating in the program are also able to choose a wig, free of charge, from our wig bank. Participants are encouraged to bring a support person, preferably a female.  This program is made possible through generous community donations to the Donna M. Niester Breast Cancer Fund at McLaren Port Huron.

The program will take place the following days in 2019:

January 24                 April 15                        July 25                       October 24
February 28                May 23                        August 22                  November 21 (third Thursday)
March 28                    June 27                       September 26

The program is free, but registration is required.  To register or for more information call HealthAccess at 1-800-228-1484.

If you arrived at the “The Closet” five minutes before the open house began, you probably had to squeeze into the building.  The local support for this new venture of A Beautiful Me was overwhelming, as community members gathered to be part of the official ribbon cutting and opening of one of Port Huron’s most recent businesses located on the corner of Huron and Grand Avenue.   A Beautiful Me Closet & “FLY 360” is a retail space for business and entrepreneurial training through selling special occasion dresses and accessories.  The store houses approximately 1,000 new or “gently used” special occasion dresses for sale.  Founder and CEO Karen Palka says they actually own about 2,500 dresses and all dresses that come into the store for sale have been thoroughly inspected and cleaned, so they are just like new.   The store will mentor and train young women to be strong and confident along with giving them entrepreneurial direction and business education.  This is a dream come true for Palka who founded A Beautiful Me ten years ago when she began putting together a curriculum to be taught to fifth grade girls that fosters self-worth in women of all ages.  WGRT congratulates Karen Palka and her board of directors for the fantastic work they are doing in Southeast Michigan.

The Port Huron Police Department is investigating a poisoning at a recovery house in the 1200 block of Lapeer Avenue on Sunday, January 13 at 9 p.m.  Port Huron Police Officers were sent to the home where the 38-year-old female Port Huron victim resides along with two suspects.  The victim is the house manager of the recovery home who heard rumors that she was poisoned by two clients that didn’t want her to work there anymore.  One of the suspects placed what was believed to be heroin in her dinner on Friday, January 11.  The victim thought her macaroni and cheese tasted funny and eventually discarded it.  Port Huron Police road patrol offices and detectives investigated and the victim was treated at McLaren Port Huron Hospital.  Evidence was obtained indicating the victim was poisoned.  Both suspects were arrested and lodged in the St. Clair County Intervention Center.  On Tuesday, January 15, Shanna Marie Kota, a 40-year-old resident of Port Huron and Sarah Elaine Prange, a 22-year-old resident of Port Huron, were both arraigned on one count of Poisoning, a 15 year felony.  Bond was set at $100,000 each.  A probable cause hearing is scheduled for January 29, 2019 in front of the Honorable Judge Cynthia Platzer.