When William Fleisher pulled into his driveway in his white pickup truck, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Both Montcalm and Ionia counties received improved rankings this year through the annual County Health Rankings results, which were recently released. The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation published the annual rankings.

The Mount Pleasant Midget Hockey team is the 2012-2013 ADRAY State Champions.

The “Take Back the Night” event was held to highlight the fact that April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

A diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is never good news. The degenerative disease cases movement-related problems such as tremors, stiffness and difficulty walking. And that’s in the early stages. Later, cognitive functions may be effected, followed by dementia. A host of other symptoms accompany the disease, none of them pleasant.

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.

The plans for a helicopter pad at Carson Health are in the architectural stage as hospital officials move forward toward a spring construction date. In January, the Carson City Council approved the sale of the old water tower property to the hospital at a price of $20,000, which was $12,000 less than the appraised value.

The Carson City-Crystal Area SchoolsBoard of Education is choosing not to participate in an early college program offered by Montcalm Community College. “We decided to hold off on participating in the early college program,” Superintendent Kevin Murphy said. “With less funding coming from the state level and tightening our budget, it just isn’t financially feasible for us to participate.”

Sen. Carl Levin may have had one of his busier weekends in Washington, D.C., in recent memory, but that didn’t stop him from making a scheduled stop in Montcalm County Saturday evening. After a 13-hour process resulting in the first formal United States budget proposal in four years finally ended at 5 a.m. Saturday, Levin boarded a plane and flew back to Michigan with his sights on the VFW Hall in Sheridan for the eighth annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner, hosted by the Montcalm County Democrats.

Shannan Kooistra and her husband, Josh, can’t help thinking of their 3-year-old son, Zade, as their “miracle” child. The rambunctious tyke, paralyzed from the hips down as a result of being born with myelomeningocele spina bifida, had undergone eight major surgeries before his second birthday. A shunt embedded in his brain carries excess spinal fluid from his head to his abdomen. And of course, he cannot walk. But these days, thanks to a coordinated effort by several area Lions Clubs, Zade zips around the Kooistra home with an ease he never could manage in a traditional wheelchair.