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 “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.

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.

Before Sen. Carl Levin leaves the United States Senate in his final term after more than 30 years of service as the longest-serving senator in Michigan’s history, he’ll be making at least one final local appearance. The Montcalm County Democrats will welcome Levin to the 8th annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner on Saturday, along with State House Rep. Brandon Dillon, D-Grand Rapids, to be a featured guest speaker at the fundraising event.

Do you know what “fracking” is? Three local organizations are sponsoring a community educational event at 6:30 pm on Monday at Rockford High School regarding hydraulic fracturing, which is an industrial oil and gas extraction technique commonly known as fracking.

Kyniska, a princess from ancient Sparta, was the first woman to win an Olympic chariot race, but she was barred from collecting her prize in person. Katherine Switzer was almost literally taken out of the 1967 Boston Marathon when race official Jock Semple attempted to drag her out of the race while she was running. While these two women made history as “the first female,” they weren’t, at the time, as celebrated for their feat as they should have been. For Marianne Huskey, who last year became the first woman in pro fishing history to win the Anglers Insight Marketing Angler of the Year award, it’s been quite the opposite.

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.