On the edge of the city near a heavily wooded border of trees sits a garden where students, teachers and residents of Belding come together to share and enjoy in the experiences that come with growing fruits and vegetables and beautiful flowers and plants. That little garden, known as the Belding Community Garden, is now receiving statewide attention after taking top honors at the Michigan Municipal League (MML) 2013 Capital Conference in Lansing, winning the MML Region 3 Community Excellence Award (CEA).

BELDING — It’s been a year of adjustments at Belding High School with the construction of a new gymnasium, auditorium, band room and other various additions to the school. But as of last week, the final touches of interior construction were completed with the opening of the new spacious high school cafeteria and commons area. [...]

Last November, just two weeks before resigning from Belding City Council, Jon Bunce gave an emotional statement at the end of a meeting declaring, “I will fight on to have the clock tower saved.” Five months later, and the Belding clock tower is quickly becoming one of the last remaining structures to remain on the 4-acre site at the corner of Main and Bridge streets. The tower will inevitably come down, there is no stopping that, but Bunce says now that he is no longer on the city council, he will dedicate time and effort to forming an official committee with the interest of collecting money and rebuilding the clock tower at a future date.

A Belding woman who has been accused of committing arson in 2010 was back in court Tuesday in an attempt to prove she is indigent and cannot pay for court expenses and her court-appointed attorney. After testimony from attorneys and two recesses, 8th Judicial Circuit Court Judge David Hoort ruled that Cynthia Stewart-Matzen is not indigent and does not qualify for a court-appointed attorney.

Easter festivities were in full swing this past holiday weekend, especially at local egg hunts such as the annual “Easter Eggstravaganza” event at the Belding Covered Village Mall.

Opening a new business is seldom easy in tough economic times, but a recently opened auction house in Orleans Township is aiming to make a profit while also doing what it can to give back to local schools. The owners of A-squared Theatre and Auction Hall, an indoor heated auction and special events venue at 7500 N. State Road (M-66) just 1.5 miles north of M-44, have set a goal to give 3 percent of total purchases made at their auctions to any local school at the buyers’ request.

With a few plucks of some strings and and a lot of time and effort, students at Belding Middle School are picking up a musical skill that many of them hope can lead to greater things. On Wednesday afternoon, evidence of “greater things” arrived in the form of a one-hour clinic by professional guitarist Joel Mabus, who wowed more than 50 seventh-graders who have either taken or are currently enrolled in guitar class at the school.

The conversation threatened to spiral out of control during the question-and-answer period of a contentious seminar on hydraulic fracturing Monday evening at Rockford High School. More than 100 area residents turned out to hear from author Maryann Lesert, who extensively studied the topic while doing research for an upcoming novel.

High school today is not what it was yesterday. As a public institution of higher learning, with teenagers shuffling from class to class on an hourly basis, the culture and world inside the doors of what many refer to as the “best four years of your life,” is an ever-changing whirlwind of new experiences found each and every day. But that culture, filled with children who are learning to become adults, is not always a favorable one, and students, faculty and administration at high schools throughout Montcalm County are ready to make a change.

For more than 35 years, Metron of Belding has been a fixture of the community, with the senior facility operating as the largest employer in Belding as it continues to find new ways to reach out to the people it serves. The largest of six Metron senior facilities in Michigan, with a maximum capacity of 128 residents and a secure unit, Metron of Belding provides short-term acute services and post-acute care to help patients resume healthy, happy and productive lifestyles.