Lauren Leonard had 16 points and 12 rebounds in Brandywine's 59-44 victory in the Class C Regional championship game Thursday night. (Daily Star Photo/AMELIO RODRIGUEZ)

By SCOTT NOVAK

Niles Daily Star

SCHOOLCRAFT – For the third time in school history and the first time since 2000, the Brandywine girls’ basketball team can call itself Class C Regional champions.

The No. 2 ranked Bobcats dispatched Bangor 59-44 Thursday night at Schoolcraft High School to advance to Tuesday night’s quarterfinal game against Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central, a 58-54 winner over Manchester.

On a team dominated by sophomores, a senior and a junior led the Bobcats to the crown.

Senior Nicole Newman knocked down all four of her 3-point shots and finished with 13 points, while inside the Bobcats pounded it in to junior Lauren Leonard, who scored 16 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

“How about the game for Nicole Newman?” Brandywine coach Josh Hood asked. “She’s a on the biggest stage of her career and look what she does. She struggled during the last part of the regular season shooting the ball a little bit, but tonight and the other night she was huge. She shot the ball wonderfully. She had great composure and that’s what you expect from a leader and that’s why she’s our captain.

“Lauren is just an animal. She is so fierce inside. She’s not the thickest of girls, but I’ll put here against anybody inside because she played so hard and so strong,” he added.

Early on in the regional final it was the quickness of Bangor’s smaller guards against the inside game of the much taller and deeper Bobcats.

The Vikings (20-5) were able to keep pace with Brandywine (23-1) through the first two quarters, but as time wore on in the third period it was easy to see that Brandywine’s constant shuffling in of players off the bench was taking it toll.

The Bobcats opened up with 23 points as Nicole Newman canned two of her 3-pointers and finished the quarter with seven points.

Sophomore Carlie Newman, who was held to just four points in the semifinals, wasn’t about to let that happen again.

Carlie Newman scored seven points in the first quarter and finished with a game-high 20 to pace Brandywine. Leonard also had seven points in the frame.

Calmika Covington single-handedly kept Bangor in the contest during the first eight minutes.

She netted 12 of her team-high 17 points in the period, but wouldn’t score in the second quarter when the Bobcats started to take control of the game.

While the scoring fell off in the second quarter, Brandywine was able to get seven points from Carlie Newman and six points from Leonard as the Bobcats built up a 10-point halftime advantage, 37-27.

“It’s just nice to move on to the next game,” Nicole Newman said. “I just kept shooting and they were falling. I needed a game like that.”

When asked about being a leader on a team filled with younger players, Newman said that she has no problem taking on the role.

“It’s huge,” she answered when asked how much it meant to the team to have her step up. “Every team needs a leader and that’s what I am trying to do for them.”

Bangor tried to claw its way back into the contest in the third quarter, as it cut the lead to 46-38 with just over two minutes remaining. But Brandywine scored the final four points of the quarter and took a 50-38 lead into the final stanza.

“We knew they were going to shoot well the first half, they are a great perimeter team,” Hood said. “But as long as we kept running and running that affects their perimeter shooting and I thought it did in the second half.”

Points were at a premium in the final quarter, but Nicole Newman canned two more triples to seal the victory and gave the Bobcats a chance to start thinking about moving on in the state tournament.

The trio of Carlie and Nicole Newman, along with Leonard accounted for all but 10 of the Bobcats’ points against the Vikings. The other points came from junior Morgan Smallwood (6) and junior Kelsey Prestly (4).

Bangor to 10 points from Monique Johnson and nine points from Shanell Smith to go along with Covington’s total.

While both teams had nearly the same about of baskets, there was a huge difference in free throw shooting.

Brandywine did hold a 5-3 advantage in 3-pointers, but the Bobcats were 12-of-20 from the line, while Bangor was 1-of-12.

BRANDYWINE 59

Carlie Newman 8 5-9 20; Nicole Newman 4 1-2 13; Michaela Greer 0 0-1 0; Mackenzie Shelton 0 0-0 0; Kelsey Prestly 2 0-0 4; Lauren Leonard 5 6-8 16. TOTALS: 21 12-20 59

BANGOR 44

Shanell Smith 4 0-3 9; Megan Everett 2 0-3 4; Calmika Covington 7 1-2 17; Michelle Hills 0 0-0 4; Jasmine Lina 0 0-0 0; Samantha McNealy 2 0-2 4; Monique Johnson 5 0-2 10. TOTALS: 20 1-12 44

Brandywine 23 37 50 59

Bangor 18 27 38 44

3-point baskets: Brandywine 5 (C. Newman 2, N. Newman 3), Bangor 3 (Smith 1,  Covington 2). Total fouls: Brandywine 18, Bangor 17. Fouled out: Covington (BA). Varsity records: Brandywine 23-1, Bangor 20-5

Chef Steve Nebus will lead the one-day class this Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at the Orchard Hills Country Club, 2841 Niles-Buchanan Rd.

He will share tips on cuts, seasonings, cooking and presentation and will provide samples of the food. The class fee is $10.

Visit www.lakemichigancollege.edu/ce to register.

Messiah in the Passover will be conducted by Roy Schwarcz, Chicago Branch director for Chosen People Ministries.

Chosen People Ministries was founded in 1894 by Leopold Cohn, a Hungarian rabbi who came to believe that Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Hebrew Scriptures. From humble beginnings in Brooklyn, New York, Chosen People Ministries has grown into a worldwide ministry that shares the gospel with Jew and Gentile alike.

Messiah in the Passover begins with the traditional Passover Seder table – complete with all the articles of this important Jewish celebration. Schwarcz will explain the symbolic meanings of the various items of the Passover feast and highlight their relationship to the Last Supper that Messiah celebrated with the disciples, giving special emphasis on the redemptive significance of the crucifixion.

“Messiah in the Passover” gives the Christian community insight into Jewish traditions so that the Jewish roots of Christianity can be better understood. This program also helps the Jewish and Christian communities understand their common heritage. The meeting is open to the public. A freewill love offering will be taken in support of Chosen People Ministries.

For more information, please contact Pastor Collin Seitz at (269) 683-3310.

“It is only fitting that a top academic achiever like Darrel be recognized by Golden Key,” said John W. Mitchell, Golden Key’s chief executive officer. “Our members are inspired and motivated not only to achieve exceptional academic accomplishments, but also to make a positive impact on our world through the society’s commitment to serve.”

Golden Key National Honour Society is the world’s premier collegiate honor society, with nearly 2 million members and more than 72 chapters at colleges and universities in seven countries.

A detour has been put in place using Hospital Street and M-60.

The Lakeland Auxiliary, St. Joseph, has a long history of supporting healthcare in southwest Michigan. Each year, the Auxiliary’s 385 members donate thousands of hours of service to Lakeland facilities. Volunteers provide a myriad of services, such as assisting clinical staff in nursing units, driving courtesy carts, delivering mail to Lakeland departments, hosting blood drives, and serving customers in the cafe and gift shop.

“We have a lot of great volunteers who are all passionate about serving Lakeland’s patients, associates, and visitors,” said Linda Fites, manager of Volunteer Services, Lakeland HealthCare.

Through various fundraising initiatives, the Lakeland Auxiliary, St. Joseph, has contributed more than $3.1 million toward 65 different programs and services at Lakeland over the past 25 years. Most recently, the Lakeland Auxiliary, St. Joseph, donated $600,000 to create special retreat areas for caregivers in the new patient addition at Lakeland Regional Medical Center, St. Joseph. This tradition of philanthropy makes the Lakeland Auxiliary, St. Joseph, the largest donor in the history of the Lakeland Health Foundations.

“It’s really exciting for the Auxiliary to be part of the new regional cancer center,” said Tina Kirby, interim president of the Lakeland Auxiliary, St. Joseph. “Helping out with special projects like this one is what the Auxiliary is here to do.”

“The generous gifts of the Lakeland Auxiliary, St. Joseph, have been the catalysts for the success of every major fundraising campaign at Lakeland,” said Bill Johnson, president of the Lakeland Health Foundations. “We are deeply grateful that our St. Joseph Auxilians continue to support first-class medical care here in southwest Michigan.”

Lakeland HealthCare’s regional cancer center will provide a full range of oncology services in one accessible location, including diagnostic imaging, laboratory services, education, a resource library, screenings, outpatient surgery, chemotherapy, infusion services, physical therapy, a pharmacy and even an on-site boutique and appearance center for current and former cancer patients. The cancer center will be a two-story, 30,000 square-foot building that will connect to the existing Center for Outpatient Services. Similar to the new patient addition at Lakeland Regional Medical Center, St. Joseph, the cancer center will incorporate evidence-based design principles to enhance clinical outcomes, healing relationships, and the patient experience.

Lakeland hopes to break ground for the new regional cancer center this spring at the Lakeland Health Park, with a projected opening date in the fall of 2011. For more information about supporting the new cancer center, contact the Lakeland Health Foundation at (269) 927-5143.

For more information about oncology services available at Lakeland HealthCare, visit www.lakelandhealth.org.

Geraldine and Harold Finley

Harold and Geraldine Finley of Niles celebrate 62 years of marriage on Friday, March 12, 2010.

The couple married March 12, 1948, in Covert.

Harold is a retired superintendent in the Niles school system.

Geraldine is a retired folder at Simplicity Pattern Co.

They are members of Mt. Calvary Church and Harold served on the board of the senior center and on the board of directors at Lakeland Hospital for 31 years.

Their children are Darwin Finley, Verion Finley and his wife, Yvonn, of Las Vegas.
They have eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

“Look at this guy’s socks,” the photographer said. “One brown sock and one blue sock. What’s that tell you?”

Hamill admits that he didn’t know. The photographer clues him in on the matter’s indications. The victim was dressed at home or dressed in the dark, he says. When Hamill asks a detective about the socks, he says he got the same answer.

The experience opened the reporter’s eyes. Though he had built an ability to write a story accurately with a clear enough picture of what he’d witnessed, he writes, “…I was nagged by doubt, knowing that I’d only skimmed the surface of the story and some larger truth was always eluding me.

“Who were all these other people in the neighborhood where one of them had now been killed?” Hamill continues. “How did they live?”

It’s a question I think many ask in their own communities when something bad happens. When something beyond our norm happens, we ask, “Who are these people? The happy couple, the young boy, the family now in the eye of a storm of rumor and speculation?”
The last two days have been filled with coverage of the recent death of a grandfather at the apparent hand of his own grandson.

And it was surprising to me how quickly so many, some of them not even from our own community, were quick to speak with a startling lack of sensitivity.

I feel a little privileged to have the job of a reporter, because it requires one to develop skills to look deeper. To ask more questions. To see without the influence of opinion.
I urge people to do more of that themselves. To ask more questions. To look deeper before building an opinion based on surface and not substance.

Not only into the strangers or the neighbors or the acquaintances, but of themselves.
Sure it’s not always comfortable to determine those answers. Sometimes we discover things about ourselves we didn’t quite expect. Sometimes the unexpected opens us up to a greater understanding of the world we live in. A greater sensitivity to that which we cannot judge.

The story of Dakotah Eliason, which has captured quite a bit of attention in the last few days, is one that I find, if you look past the sensationalism of it all, that’s simply a sad situation.

Looking past the crime itself, the circumstances nobody knows, strip it down to the socks and at the root of the story is a family robbed of its child in one way or another for an undetermined amount of time.

And hopefully … it will make you think.

Jessica Sieff is a reporter for the Niles Daily Star. Reach her at
jessica.sieff@leaderpub.com.

Take one of the signs at last year’s tea party rally in Washington, “Grandma’s not shovel-ready.” That summed up the anti-ObamaCare, pro-smaller government movement in a single image.

Something similar happened recently when Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky who isn’t seeking re-election, temporarily held up a $10 billion spending bill that was to extend temporary unemployment benefits, make Medicare payments to doctors and provide satellite TV for rural Americans.

Many on the left painted Bunning as a cranky man who wanted to leave workers unemployed, without access to a doctor and with nothing but snow on their big-screen TVs.

Yet his point was important.

Congress, after all passed a “PayGo” law this year, saying that any new federal spending had to be offset by eliminating an equal amount elsewhere in the budget.

But when it came time to pass the latest $10 billion extension, lawmakers simply labeled it “emergency spending” and added it to the deficit, ignoring their legal duty to offset the new spending.

This is absurd. If they can’t find $10 billion to trim to comply with its own law, can we really expect them to make difficult budget decisions in the years and decades ahead?
Spending is out of control.

The federal budget for 2010 calls for $3.5 trillion in spending, up from $2 trillion in 2002.

There’s no way every dollar of that is absolutely necessary and intelligently spent.
But such big spending has encouraged Americans to depend more and more on government – and for things a lot more important than television.

How overwhelming is that dependence? How much have government programs squeezed out the social obligations and services once carried out by community groups, family networks and even local governments?

That’s the question The Index of Dependence on Government, just published by The Heritage Foundation, aims to answer.

Consider the “Big Three” entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
These mandatory spending programs are on autopilot.

Lawmakers never vote on how much to spend on them, yet the costs climb every year.
Even worse, they have “first call” on federal spending. So as they grow, they’ll automatically pull money from things that should be national priorities, such as defense spending.

Unless Congress reforms entitlements, they could eventually represent virtually all federal spending.

“Over the next 25 years, more than 75 million boomers will begin collecting Social Security checks, drawing down Medicare benefits, and relying on long-term care under Medicaid,” the Index authors point out. “No event will financially challenge these important programs over the next two decades more than this shift of the largest generation ever into retirement.”

How could Congress address this problem? “The solution is to turn these programs into 30-year budgeted programs, subjecting the budgets to debate every five years,” the authors write.

That would force lawmakers to make difficult choices, instead of leaving problems for future generations to solve.

Another problem highlighted by the Index: Fewer people are paying taxes. Roughly one in five filers paid no taxes in 1980. Today it’s one in three. More and more Americans are pocketing “free” government benefits.

One simple, fair fix would be a flat tax with a low rate. The total amount paid could remain the same, but more people would be contributing. When they had skin in the game, they’d be eager to depend less on government.

To make good on all our government promises would cost $56.4 trillion, or $184,000 per American citizen.

That’s a mortgage our children and grandchildren will be expected to pay – without getting to live in the house.

It’s time to restore fiscal sanity.

Let’s get America off the dole.

Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).

He was born July 13, 1942 in Niles. He was a lifetime area resident. Burlin was also a U.S. Army veteran, member of the Free and Accepted Mason Lodge 68, Moose Lodge and Buchanan American Legion Post 51, and was an avid golfer. He was employed in materials management.

On Feb. 24, 1962 he married Georgia Kaye (Sarver) Hankila, who survives.
He is also survived by a son, Michael (Trish) Hankila of Middlebury, Ind.; daughters, Cara (Henry) Wykowski of Ross, Calif. and Julie (Paul) Coskie of St. Joseph; sister, Marie Hankila of Belleville, Mich.; grandchildren, Eric and Daniel Wykowski, Samantha, McKenna and Olivia Coskie, Courtney Spencer, Lindsay Pickart, L. Bradley Huebner and Madison and Austin Abrams; and great-grandchildren, Tatum and William Spencer and Hailey Huebner.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Mike and Wilma (Hess) Hankila.
A celebration of life service will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday, March 14, 2010 at the Buchanan American Legion Post 51.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Lakeland Hospice, St. Joseph.