Dearborn Memorial Day parade-watchers.

On this Memorial Day, let’s all fly our flags and keep alive the spirit of American patriotism that is burning bright in all of us today. We thankfully remember those who have fought, who are fighting, and who will continue to fight to preserve our liberty and the right of all people to live in freedom.

As we pause to give thanks on this holiday, let’s also take the time to reflect on what Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, said in a speech on May 18, 1941 during the heated debate that occurred over the United States open support of the Allies before entering World War II.

” . . . What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession.

“An America is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the right of free men . . . “

It’s not often you can find a way to successfully turn a love for a sport into a profession but Ray Vipond appears to have done just that at his store at 23920 Carlysle in Dearborn.

Edsel Ford graduate Ray Vipond opened The Fight Shop in January.

The 29-year-old Dearborn resident opened The Fight Shop in January and has been going strong since. Now, truth be told, it’s not a store for the average Joe.

 But if you are an amateur boxer in Metro Detroit looking for equipment or a fan of boxing or amateur mixed martial arts, this is your dream come true. You’ll find every imaginable boxing brand in Vipond’s store, along with the staples of boxing: shoes, handwraps, mouth guards, gloves and heavy bags. Later this summer, the store will be adding a line of karate clothing. He also carries a huge line of T-Shirts for those who love boxing and mixed martial arts.

A 1997 Edsel Ford High School graduate, Vipond is no stranger to boxing as his grandfather was a golden glove champion in Michigan. But he didn’t actually get into the ring as an amateur until 2004. As amateur boxers aren’t allowed to be paid, Vipond worked a 40 hour work week and then went to the Dynamic Boxing Club in Garden City to train.

He fought for three years until in 2007 he realized he was “too old” to be an amateur boxer. Most enter the profession between 16 and 18 years of age. But during his time at the various gyms around Metro Detroit, he did learn a lot about what the sport lacks in Michigan — a dedicated store for boxers to shop.

And so The Fight Shop was born. After months of research and trying to find a location, Vipond went from the ring to behind the register.

“A lot of this came from my experience as an amateur boxer,” Vipond said. “There was no store to visit to try on shoes or gloves so you were mail ordering and it was hit or miss.” So instead of  ordering the wrong size boxing shoe or improperly fitting gloves out of a catalog, fighters will now have an alternative way of getting the items they need, he says.

Vipond admits his store serves a narrow band of customers but what he does have is the right product for a group that currently isn’t being served with USA Boxing and AIBA-approved equipment.

Why does Vipond love a sport that seems so violent? He had this to say about that topic in a posting on his blog earlier this year.

“Boxing fans are a different breed, cut from a different cloth. When all is said and done, it’s legalized violence. It requires us to enjoy something most people strive to avoid, hand-to-hand combat. Boxing challenges us to face the natural instinct of fight or flight  . . .  But why do we love it so much? I for one love the individuality. You have no teammates to turn to, no timeouts, no one coming off the bench. It’s you versus him. Who’s better? Who trained harder? Who wants it more? I like that one punch can change an entire fight. Where a man can be out-boxed for 12 rounds and at the very end, land that one home-run punch . . .”

Vipond appears to be landing the right punches now, doing all the right things to get his store on the radar of the 25 boxing and another 25 mixed martial arts gyms in southeast Michigan. The fact he was once an amateur boxer himself has given him access to many of these gyms. So Vipond and his store are now well known in these circles as the place to go for equipment and to meet with someone who actually understands the sport.  In addition, he is a sponsor at nearly every amateur boxing event and gives out plenty of T-shirts with his store’s name.

His hard work appears to be paying off for him.

The Fight Shop is located at 23920 Carlysle (at Telegraph, between Michigan Avenue and Van Born Road) in Dearborn. Contact the store at (313) 278-5770 or visit online by clicking HERE

If you’re planning to attend Dearborn’s 85th annual Memorial Day Parade beginning at 10 a..m. Monday you’ll need to find a parking site other than the former Montgomery Ward store.  Unlike past years, parking will not be available at the  southeast corner of Michigan and Schaefer.

The Dearborn War Memorial at City Hall.

However, plenty of free parking can be found  in the public lot located near the northwest corner of Michigan and Schaefer (north side of Michigan Avenue, where the former Kroger supermarket was located). Access to that lot is available off of Schaefer.

To get to this lot, the city is advising drivers to travel south on Schaefer from Ford Road. Drivers will not be able to cross Michigan Avenue to reach the parking lot if they are traveling north on Schaefer.

Serving as Parade grand marshal will be Michael E. Thornton, a retired United States Navy SEAL, a veteran of the Vietnam War and a Medal of Honor recipient. Also participating are Dearborn’s many veterans’ organizations, school bands, youth groups, community service organizations, and special floats from The Parade Company. There also will be a flyover by a F-18 fighter aircraft.

To make Dearborn’s 85th parade possible, a special thanks goes out to the many generous sponsors.

“It would be very challenging to hold an event on the scale that Dearborn does without the leaders in our business community who step up to the plate and make such a strong commitment to this effort,” said Gary Tanner, commander of the Dearborn Allied War Veterans Council. “Their help is a key factor in our conducting one of America’s best-known tributes to our fallen service men and women.”

The Parade’s sponsors include: Dearborn Federal Savings Bank; Dearborn Rotary Foundation, which is sponsoring the special “Let Freedom Ring” float; ACO Hardware; Lafontaine Motors, Inc.; HAP Alliance Plan of Michigan; East Dearborn Downtown Development Authority; Dearborn resident Brian O’Donnell; Henry Ford Medical Center Fairlane / emergency room; Hyatt Regency Dearborn; and Dearborn Outer Drive Kiwanis and Dearborn High Key Club.

Also providing support for the parade and ceremony are Park Place, Andiamo, Bianco Tours, Kroger at Michigan and Greenfield, The Henry Ford, The Dearborn Inn, Dennis Lark, Julie Pucci, Exchange Club, Kiwanis of Outer Drive, Eppinger, Les Stanford Chevrolet, Jack Demmer Lincoln Mercury and WestbornChrysler Plymouth Jeep.

Following the Parade, the City’s official remembrance service takes place at the Dearborn War Memorial, located on the grounds of Dearborn City Hall, and then concludes with a free outdoor concert by the Rackham Ensemble Singers. The group will be performing on an outdoor stage in City Hall Park, singing a variety of songs made famous during the “boogie woogie” era. Also being planned for City Hall Park are food and beverages for sale (including cold beer, sales of which benefit veterans’ causes), the chance to buy raffle tickets to win a new motorcycle and displays of military vehicles and exhibits from the U.S. Navy.

The Parade route is Michigan Avenue from Firestone to Schaefer in east Dearborn.

Funeral mass for Msgr. Herman Kucyk, longtime pastor of the Divine Child parish in Dearborn, is 11 a.m. Wednesday at the church. A morning prayer will precede the mass at 8:30 a.m.

Msgr. Kucyk died Friday at the Divine Child rectory of complications from kidney failure and lung cancer. He was 83.

Msgr. Kucyk’s sister, in an obituary in the Detroit Free Press, described Msgr. Kucyk, as an avid gardener with “an incredible eye for beauty and enjoyed sharing it with others.”

As pastor of the Dearborn parish, Msgr. Kucyk tended to the outdoor beauty surrounding the church and school buildings along with his spiritual and administrative duties.

He was known by students and parishioners as Father K. And he was just as familiar a figure in his farmer’s hat, blue jeans and worker’s gloves as he was in his priestly garb.

“If he hadn’t become a priest, my brother would have been a master gardener. He had an incredible eye for beauty and enjoyed sharing it with others,” his sister Jan Pierce said. “During his time at the school, he was so happy. He loved the children and mentored many of the younger priests.”

To read the Free Press article, please click HERE.

The weather may not have been perfect in the morning, but it seems a record number of people took part in the 4th annual Mutt Strut on May 16, raising some $65,000 for the Dearborn Animal Shelter in the process.

The short video below captures some of the excitment around the strut.

 We have said this before on this site, the annual walk is a good way to get some much needed foot traffic into west Dearborn, as many participants are not from Dearborn.

It is the type of event our downtown Dearborn needs to see more of. Take a look at what downtown Plymouth does on a regular basis. That city’s entire spring/summer if filled with outdoor events that get people downtown.

All proceeds from the walk went to the Friends For the Dearborn Animal Shelter, which supports Shelter operations and community-and animal-related programs. The Friends is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. For more information about the organization or if you want to make a donation, please visit www.Dearborn-Animals.com

A candidate for Dearborn mayor whose petitions were ruled invalid has filed a grievance with the elections commission requesting reconsideration in the matter.

The Dearborn Clerk’s office ruled last week that some of the signatures on Ziad Abdulhamid Abdulmalik’s petition were invalid, which automatically made him ineligible to run for Dearborn mayor. He is now asking that the decision be reconsidered.

The City Clerk’s office will meet with election commission officials next week to discuss a variety of matters, including the request by Abdulmalik. According to the clerk’s office, a number of the signatures on Abdulmalik’s petition did not match the signatures the clerk’s office keeps on file of all registered voters in Dearborn.

The Clerk’s office took similar action with Doug Thomas, who submitted petitions for both city council and mayor. His petition for council was deemed valid but his mayoral one was thrown out because a number of the signatures were from people who are not registered voters in Dearborn, which is a requirement. Apparently either Thomas or his supporters overlooked that tiny detail as a number of the signatures on his mayoral petition were from Dearborn Heights residents.

Of course, the drama of not having the required amount of signatures to run for mayor could have been avoided by both Thomas and Abdulmalik. Had the candidates turned in their petitions ahead of the deadline, they would have had time to actually go back out and get the proper signatures from registered Dearborn voters to make their petitions valid before the time ran out.  

As it stands now, Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., will face just one challenger, Michael J. Prus, in the November general election.

Dearborn Fire Chief Nazih Hazime plans to retire July 30, his 25th year as a Dearborn firefighter, to become chief of the Sedona Fire District in Sedona, Ariz.

The Dearborn Press & Guide reported this news first in their Sunday edition.

“I want to make it clear that I’m not running away from Dearborn - I love this city,” Hazime, a Dearborn resident for more than 30 years told the Press & Guide. “It was a very difficult decision to leave, but this represents a great opportunity. I’m going to miss everyone - especially my colleagues in the fire department.”

Before being named fire chief, from 1984 to 2004, Hazime held the positions of firefighter I, firefighter II, fire pump operator, firefighter II and lieutenant with the Dearborn Fire Department. The late Mayor Michael A. Guido appointed him fire chief in February 2004.

Hazime told the Press & Guide that he learned May 9 he had been unanimously selected from among 52 candidates to serve as fire chief of the Sedona Fire District, which oversees two communities and two counties with a population of about 22,000.

The majority of Dearborn residents rate the quality of life in their city as excellent or good, believe they are getting their money’s worth for their tax dollars and would favor as a cost-save City Hall being open for just four days a week with longer hours, according to the results from a phone survey recently released by the city.

About 400 registered voters took part in the survey, with 83 percent saying the quality of life in Dearborn was excellent or good, while only 1.1 percent found it poor or very poor.

The survey was conducted by Shreck & Associates in February and the results were shared with city council at their Monday meeting. Of those surveyed, about 37.3 percent reside in East Dearborn, 30.3 percent live in Southwest Dearborn, 25.3 percent in Northwest Dearborn, 3.3 percent in Springwells and 4 percent the South End.

According to the survey:

• 41.3 percent were unable to list any dislike with the city or its services
• 6 percent ranked taxes as a dislike
• 5.8 percent ranked culture as a dislike
• 5 percent disliked the rate of commercial development
• 3.5 percent ranked empty houses and home upkeep as a dislike
• 2.8 percent rated parking as a dislike

Concern about crime was minimal, as just 1.5 percent of respondents mentioned it as an issue, according to survey results.

As the survey was conducted via landline phones, residents who only have cellular phone service were not included in the survey.
“This survey is slanted slightly toward an older demographic,” Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., told the Dearborn Press & Guide. “It’s still perfectly valid, but it’s something we need to keep in mind.”

In addition, the survey found:

• 71 percent of those surveyed agreed they get their money’s worth for tax dollars
• 14.5 percent said they did not get their money’s worth
• 13.5 percent were not sure
• 40 percent said the city no longer has the money to provide the services it did in the past
• 84.3 percent would support, as a cost-save, City Hall being open four days a week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. rather than the current 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days per week.

How could the City save money?

• 4.9 percent suggested reducing city services
• 4.1 percent said eliminate or cut back on underutilized facilities
• 3.4 percent said close pools
• 3.1 percent said eliminate Homecoming
• 2.8 percent said reduce staff
• 2.8 percent said sell or close Camp Dearborn

Those surveyed also rated direct mail as the best way for the city to communicate to residents, with about two thirds saying so. Just 5.3 percent mentioned they wanted to receive more information via the Internet. Some 8.8 percent said they would like to conduct more city business online. Those surveyed under the age of 45 said they would like to use the Internet for City business (18.5 percent), while 62.5 percent of respondents 18 to 25 years said they would.

On Fairlane Town Center residents were split on shopping there when they needed to go to a mall:

• 43.8 percent said they regularly shop there
• 55 percent do not
• 1.3 percent were unsure

When asked why they didn’t shop at Fairlane:

• 11.5 percent said they preferred other shopping venues
• 8.8 percent mentioned crime or safety reasons
• 8 percent don’t drive or get out much
• 7.8 percent don’t like Fairlane
• 6.5 percent mentioned the clientele or culture of the mall as a reason (age, race, ethnicity)
• 3.5 percent simply don’t like malls

What is best about living in Dearborn? According to the survey, city services ranked first (29.3 percent), following by safety and community and then schools.

Dearborn’s Joe Ricci Dodge, 14765 Michigan Ave., is among the 789 dealerships that Chrysler LLC says it will seek to slash by June 9, according to the court document listing the names of the dealerships.

According to the Detroit Free Press, some of the 789 dealers will try to stay in business, selling used cars and offering auto services. Joe Ricci Dodge is among some 40 dealerships in Michigan on Chrysler’s closure list.

With the dealerships now identified, Chrysler must sell the 44,000 vehicles sitting on their lots in the next few weeks without driving prices to fire-sale levels for remaining dealers, the Free Press reports

According to the Free Press, Chrysler said it would move the inventory from the rejected dealers to those that stay open and try to sell most of it over the next four to six weeks. But it’s unclear who gets the money from the sale of those vehicles.

Chrysler’s Steven Landry, executive vice president of North American sales and marketing, told the Free Press there would be no compensation to dealers who owe various amounts to Chrysler Financial for that inventory.

Get ready for some heavy duty campaigning this summer as enough candidates have filed to serve on the Dearborn City Council to force a primary on August 4.

Below is a list of the candidates as of 5 p.m. Tuesday. The Dearborn City Clerk’s office will spend the day today to confirm the validity of the signatures on the other petitions. Candidates have until Friday to withdraw from the race.

The race for mayor so far includes Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., and Michael Prus. Councilman Doug Thomas did file a petition for the position but the clerk’s office still is checking on the validity of the signatures on his petition. Thomas also filed to run for his council seat. The petition for that position was valid.

For the first time since being elected to City Clerk, Kathleen Buda will be running unopposed after John Jay Hubbard withdrew his petition for the race.

The top 14 vote getters in the August primary will proceed to the general election in November. The council candidates include:

1. Robert Abraham (I)
2. Joseph Agius
3. David Bazzy
4. Terry Burke
5. Khalil Dakhlallah
6. Patrick D’Ambrosio
7. George Darany (I)
8. Mark Dawdy
9. Stephen Dobkowski, Jr
10. Sharon Dulmage
11. Rabih Hammoud
12. George Hart
13. Nancy Hubbard (I)
14. Patrick Kiernan
15. Scott Marquette
16. Brian O’Donnell
17. Suzanne Sareini (I)
18. Ali Sayed
19. Molly Sharp
20. Mark Shooshanian (I)
21. Nancy Siwik
22. Hussein Sobh
23. Thomas Tafelski (I)
24. Doug Thomas (I)
25. Adrenne Wygonik