2007 POY - HM

Kevin Benedict

Singles

A matter of seconds

To envision the county fair is to grasp a tale of movement: of people, of sound, of aroma, of light, and fundamentally, of time. This essay seeks to capture that movement by exploring a few of the unique experiences of the Midland County Fair via one second exposures.

The bumpy road home

Dan TerBurgh has been transitioning back to civilian life after serving in the Marines for nearly a decade. Now home with his wife Sara and three children, Dan has had to weather the storms of unemployment, financial insecurity, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but now has a full-time job with The Dow Chemical Co. While delving back into more hands-on fatherhood and husbandry, Dan has also involved himself in the community. “I guess the transition comes in the family more than anything else,” Dan said. “Here, I got to submit to my wife and my kids, and that has been the hardest thing for me, and I think I’ve made progress….”

On the road again

On April 26, 2007, Great Lakes Loons right fielder Scott Van Slyke left with his teammates for an extended road trip to Iowa. “You got your friends back home or people that don’t really know very well, (they’re) like “Oh, you’re a professional baseball player, that must be so fun” … the games are great. You know, when you win it’s great, when you play well it’s great, but the road trips stink, the hotels aren’t usually this nice … Sometimes it just gets miserable and I think everybody thinks it’s all, you know, fun and games, and glory, and it’s not. … You get dirty and you bleed and you lose and get your feelins’ hurt and you get hurt and there’s just a bunch of other things that happen that I just don’t think other people know about.”