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 Buzzing About Spring, April 4, 2011…Two weeks before what we hope is the last snowfall of the season today April 16th, 2011
It’s been a long winter here at the end of the road. We had a lot of snow and cold temperatures that tested the metal of the habitants who chose to winter here in Ely. We had some warmer weather in mid March, but then Old Man Winter decided he wasn’t done yet. March ended on a cold note, and April’s first week was much more winter than spring. I enjoy cross country skiing, but things got icy out on the trails, and so the last few weeks getting out have been limited to walking around town. I took my bike out for the first ride of the last week when the temperature broke forty. It wasn’t a long ride, but it felt good to ride again.
Today the weather forecast predicted highs in the low to mid fifties, and when I looked at the sunshine and blue skies, I decided that today was the day to get out on the open road. Walt Whitman wrote that all great and heroic thoughts came to him when he was out traveling the open road. I feel the same way, when I ride my hybrid bike around Ely.
Most people don’t think about bicycles when the come north to visit us at the end of the road, but Ely is a great place to ride bike. One of the best things about living in Ely is that it really is a very small place. We are listed at 3,460 people for the last census Ely is less than ¾ mile wide, by a mile and a half long. I haven’t owned an automobile for ten years now, and I get along fine without one.
My days of ramming my fat tired bike along rock strewn trails are behind me. I will leave that kind of cycling to younger riders. I ride a comfortable hybrid bike that’s made to ride easy on either asphalt or gravel. I call it my comfort bike. It is a Haro Heartland and from the first time I sat on it, I knew it was the bike for me.
Today was my first real ride of the season. I have loved riding bicycles since I was a boy. I didn’t ride during my prime years, but when my back started giving me problems, I found riding bike to be something that I enjoyed doing. It was easy on my body, and cycling enabled me to cover a lot more ground then I can by walking. It is also lots more fun. I love riding bike.
I decided ten miles was about as far as I wanted to go, so I decided that a cycle out to Winton and then back home on the old road would be a great start to the season. Winton is four miles from my home on Harvey Street, and the old road between Ely and Winton is a nice way to come back home, because the hills aren’t so steep. Riding to Winton is easy, because it’s mostly down hill. If you’re looking to build your endurance riding the main highway back to Ely is almost a three mile ride; and it is all up hill. Riding the old road home is lots easier and way more fun. Generally speaking I prefer riding what I call; The Paths of Least Resistance. If there is an easy way to take a ride, then usually that’s the way I want to go.
I spotted a single robin in a neighbor’s yard yesterday hunting earth worms in the warm sunshine. She was the first robin of the year. I hope I never get past the excitement and wonder of seeing the first robin of spring. The starlings and crow scouts have been around for weeks now, but there is something about seeing that first robin of spring that stirs something deep inside me. Today, as if to reinforce the changing of seasons, I spotted a pair of robins gathering up bits and pieces as they start to build a new nest where they will raise one or two batches of a new generation.
Many people who walk or ride bike have music piped into their heads, but I prefer to listen to the natural sounds as I ride along. Today I was rewarded by hearing the wonderful music of geese making their way north for another summer. Ely isn’t a big place for geese. We have a few small local flocks, but most of the geese will move on to places more suited to their needs. What they needed this morning was open water where they could rest in safety. They found what they needed on the Shagawa River. When I got close to the river I could see and hear that the river was full of Canada Geese and Golden Eye Ducks. The thing that makes Golden Eyes special is they are the only duck that winters over in places like Ely. All they need is a little open water, so they gather around rapids that never freeze. They are also the only duck that can swallow underwater.
I took out my binoculars and had a good lock at the wonder of an unfolding spring. I closed my eyes as another flock of twenty honkers, who were riding an easy blowing south wind decided to join their cousins on the Shagawa River. The sound of honking geese entered into my soul. They were so close overhead that I could hear the whooshing sound of their powerful wings, and hear the flock of twenty three as they splashed down in the river. I started counting geese and I stopped when the count reached a hundred and fifty birds. Then I continued on my way, peddling away to the joyful sound of spring geese happily honking away; enjoying the open water.
This time of year people start watching the ice trying to gage how long it will take before we see open water. Each year hundreds of people send in their guesses as to when the ice will leave Shagawa Lake. The last time I saw Shagawa Lake was a few weeks back when I was on a pair of skis, and judging by what I saw when I looked out from the south shore of the lake, was that if I wanted to, I could still be skiing on Shagawa Lake. It will be a few more weeks I think before we will see open water on Shagawa Lake, so there is still time to get your guess into the Ely Echo. I was about to put my binoculars away when I noticed a bird high up in the sky, and when I focused in on the bird, I could see it was a Bald Eagle heading north looking for its patch of open water and maybe a dinner of fish after a long day of travel.
A week ago spring seemed a long way off, but after seeing Canada Geese swimming on open water, and robins singing in the morning, spring doesn’t seem so far off today.
 Ely, A Two Fisted Hard Drinking Town, by Mike Hillman
The first mention of Ely and drinking that I could find went back to the late 1800’s when a St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter asked the nationally known evangelist Billy Sunday the reason why he spent so many summers battling Old Scratch in the small mining town at the end of the tracks. Billy Sunday was an outstanding athlete who played semi pro baseball for the Chicago White Sox, before he heard the call of lord beckoning him north to Ely to do his evangelistic work. For several summers Billy Sunday battled the devil on the stage of Washington Auditorium on warm summer nights. According to reports; Billy Sunday would take off his coat, roll up his sleeves, get right down on the stage floor, and challenge Lucifer to a one fall match. Billy would toss the invisible demon around like a rag doll, pin the devil after a tremendous tussle, and then throw the overmatched spirit out the front door on his ear. Then the good reverend would ready him self for the next battle to save a lost soul. According to legend; Billy Sunday never lost a match. The next day Billy would put down his bible, pick up his glove and bat, and be out on the diamond playing ball during the Ely-Winton baseball games. When the newspaper reporter asked Sunday why he kept coming back to Ely, Sunday thought for a moment and then replied; Ely has forty six saloons and six churches and the only difference between Ely and Hell was that Ely had a railroad running to it. There was too much work in Ely for a single summer.
Prohibition hit Ely like a nine pound hammer. Franklin Roosevelt told America that it had nothing to fear but fear itself. Ely was afraid that if it spent one more year of enforced sobriety, it would dry up and blow away like dust in a desert sandstorm. In order to cheer up his depressed and parched nation Roosevelt chose Happy Days are Here Again as his theme song. When the newly elected President repealed Prohibition in the early 1930’s, FDR made good on the promise, and happy days really were here again. Ely celebrated the repeal of the 18th Amendment by issuing fifty three liquor licenses to assuage the powerful thirst that had built up during that desert dry decade of enforced sobriety which gripped the little mining town like terrible ten year hangover.
My Uncle Poochie used to take me fishing on summer mornings. We would get up early, but before we headed out to the lake, we would stop at Zaveral’s Bar so that Uncle Poochie could enjoy a bump and a beer before we sallied forth to angle up a few walleyes. One morning I asked my uncle if six o’clock wasn’t a little early to start drinking. My uncle looked at me in stunned surprise and shook his head in incredulous disbelief. He thought for a moment and then taught me the catechism of Ely’s attitude towards drinking. I will always remember what Uncle Poochie told me that day. “There’s no right or wrong time for drinking Mike. It all depends on the individual. The old pensioners who come early for a bump and a beer are morning drinkers. Retired guys like welcoming each new day with a few snorts. They have a couple shots to get their motors running, and then they’ll go home for lunch and a nap. Many of them come back in the afternoon to help buck them up the rest of the day. Then there are night time tipplers who love to drink and dance. Night timer’s start drinking at nine when the music starts playing on Friday and Saturday nights, and they don’t quit until the music stops a one o’clock. So you see Mike, there’s no right or wrong time for drinking here in Ely. It all depends on the drinker.” In Ely, drinking is a timeless tradition. It seems Billy Sunday still has some work to do.
 13 April 2011; Soudan Mine Fire Update
The Fire Is Out, but Questions Burn Over the Future of the Soudan Mine.
It was just about the last place where I expected to hear about a fire, but on the morning of March 19th, I was listening to the morning news, when they announced that there was a fire burning at the Soudan Mine. The reason I was surprised to hear about a fire at the Soudan Mine is that the place people visit on the 27th level is almost all solid rock. In many underground mines timbers were needed to support the works. You didn’t have to do that at the Soudan Mine. The rock is so solid that it needs no additional support, so at first I wondered just where the fire was burning.
One of the places in the mine that there is a lot of wood is in the shaft that hauls the people from the surface 2341 feet down to the 27th level, and then it hauls them back again. Each off season the maintenance team works hard to make sure the mine is safe for the thousands of people who visit each year. In order to make sure the shaft is safe some of it is lined with concrete and the back of the shaft is lined with timbers. That is where the fire started and this fire was burning around two thousand feet underground. It was the biggest chimney fire Minnesota has seen in a long time.
They pumped thousands of gallons of foam down the Number 8 Shaft in order to extinguish the fire. After a few days the fire was out, and they were able to get a team down to the 27th level to assess the damages both to the mine’s history tour, and the Minos Project which is housed in a large lab carved out of the rock. When the team reached the bottom, they found a mess.
The foam was eight feet deep in Shaft Station, and the eight foot deep foam went a 150 feet down both the east and west drifts. The foam forced open a door to the lab, and in some places the foam reached 15 feet high. It appears that no major damage was done to the lab or tour level, but it will take time to clean up the mess. It is fire damage to the shaft which is causing the main concern for the DNR people who operate the Soudan Mine State Park where safety is a vital concern.
A crew was doing some welding in the shaft shortly before the fire was first reported and it looks like some sparks from the welder may have lodged in the timber lining the back wall of the inclined shaft, and that is thought to be a possible cause of the fire, but state experts will make a determination at a later date.
I talked to James Pointer who manages the summer tourist season at the Soudan Mine, and I asked if the March 17th fire placed the 2011 tourist season in jeopardy or whether they will be able to clean up after the fire, and repair the damage to the shaft before the late May start up. According to James Pointer it is just too early to say whether or not the season will be ready to go next month or whether the fire damage will close the mine while repairs are made to the shaft. Keep reading our blogs on the Ely Buzz and we’ll let you know when things will start humming again at the Soudan Mine.
April 2011 150th Anniversary of our Civil War by Mike Hillman
This week marked the 150th Anniversary when the forces from the Confederate States of America fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. It was the beginning of our most sanguinary conflict in our nation’s history, and The American Civil War cost the lives of six hundred thousand soldiers before the issue that started the conflict was decided.
I was surprised to learn that when surveys were conducted with young people around the country asking what was the cause of the war, that the majority of those surveyed sited States Rights as the primary cause of the conflict. According to most of the history I have personally read and the opinion of most Civil War Historians the reason the Southern States left the Union was fears that laws would soon be passed in Congress which either would allow new states entering the Union to choose to ban or allow slavery, and they couldn’t let that happen, because the South wanted to keep slave states and slave states in balance, and in1861 the balance was tipping towards free states.
From the first time American delegates gathered after our Revolutionary War to decide how we would govern ourselves, the institution of slavery had been practiced here for almost two hundred years. Many states were in favor of the abolition of slavery from the first, but in order for the Southern States to sign The Constitution a compromise was needed regarding American Slavery where one in six Americans were owned by another American. The compromise in our Constitution called for an end to International Slavery in the early 1800’s, and it was hoped that the institution would just die out in America after that, because slavery wasn’t very efficient.
In order to count all the black slaves in America, it was decided that black people couldn’t be counted as an equal to white men, so our Constitution recognized a slave as 3/5 of a person. That was how we learned how many slaves there were in America. We count our people every ten years, because our Republic is based on populations. Some states have more people living there, and they get more votes in The House of Representatives, then smaller states do, but every state has two senators.
Slavery was starting to fade out in America when Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin, which was an engine that cleaned cotton fast and cheap. All of a sudden the American South relied on cotton as a staple crop, and people were needed to pick the cotton balls. After that the southern states wouldn’t think of getting rid of their slaves. It would take a horrible civil war to do that. The next four years America will look back at the Civil War, and how it changed with the passage of 150 years.
From before the first shot was fired, Abraham Lincoln wanted to make sure it was Jefferson Davis who was forced to fire the first shot. From the outset, Abe Lincoln wanted to make it clear that the American Government didn’t want to begin a civil war, but the Confederate States thought it was only a matter of time before the country banned the institution of slavery, because the balance of free states to slave states was growing more and more in favor of free states where many people thought that slavery was an abomination.
Leaving the Union was the only way the South felt they could keep their slaves, so in April of 1861 shots were fired on Fort Sumter when a Union relief column was set to restock the Fort Sumter with food and other basic needs. Jeff Davis couldn’t allow that to happen, so he gave the order to fire on Fort Sumter and force it to surrender. Lincoln had what he wanted which was basically a good excurse to fight a Civil War to save the Union as he was sworn to do when he took his oat of office.
When the press asked Lincoln why he was calling for troops to put down the rebellion, he was able to point out that up until now, his government was trying to convince the Southern States to come back and talk in order to rectify their differences, but now that the Confederate States were making war on the legal government, Lincoln had an obligation to protect and defend government property. Fort Sumter was government property and when the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, they started a Civil War. Like every president before him, Lincoln swore to protect and defend the Constitution of The United States. It was something for which Lincoln ended giving his last full measure of devotion. Later on in the war, Lincoln would take the first steps to abolish the institution of slavery in the United States, but in 1861 Abraham Lincoln made it perfectly clear that his reason for going to war was to preserve the Union and nothing more than that. Two years later, when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, The Civil War would take on more black and white quality when things were better defined; one half of our country would fight to keep slavery while the other half would fight harder to banish the institution of slavery in the United States, and keep the Confederate States in the Union.
I think Abraham Lincoln would be surprised and pleased to see that not only can black people and women vote in our elections, but we now have a black American serving as our current president. In Lincoln’s opinion, he didn’t think we would get along well as blacks and whites, for at least two hundred years. That was 150 years ago, so maybe we are a little farther along then we give ourselves credit for, but it is well to remember that it took the lives of over six hundred thousand soldiers to decide the issue, and to bring us to this point where we are still as Lincoln said: The Last Best Hope for the World.
 It’s been a long winter here at the end of the road. We had a lot of snow and cold temperatures that tested the metal of the inhabitants who chose to winter here in Ely. We had some warmer weather in mid March, but then Old Man Winter decided he wasn’t done yet. March ended on a cold note, and April’s first week was much more winter than spring. I enjoy cross country skiing, but things got icy out on the trails, and so the last few weeks getting out have been limited to walking around town. I took my bike out for the first ride of the last week when the temperature broke forty. It wasn’t a long ride, but it felt good to ride again.
Today the weather forecast predicted highs in the low to mid fifties, and when I looked at the sunshine and blue skies, I decided that today was the day to get out on the open road. Walt Whitman wrote that all great and heroic thoughts came to him when he was out traveling the open road. I feel the same way, when I ride my hybrid bike around Ely.
Most people don’t think about bicycles when the come north to visit us at the end of the road, but Ely is a great place to ride bike. One of the best things about living in Ely is that it really is a very small place. We are listed at 3,460 people for the last census Ely is less than ¾ mile wide, by a mile and a half long. I haven’t owned an automobile for ten years now, and I get along fine without one.
My days of ramming my fat tired bike along rock strewn trails are behind me. I will leave that kind of cycling to younger riders. I ride a comfortable hybrid bike that’s made to ride easy on either asphalt or gravel. I call it my comfort bike. It is a Haro Heartland and from the first time I sat on it, I knew it was the bike for me.
Today was my first real ride of the season. I have loved riding bicycles since I was a boy. I didn’t ride during my prime years, but when my back started giving me problems, I found riding bike to be something that I enjoyed doing. It was easy on my body, and cycling enabled me to cover a lot more ground then I can by walking. It is also lots more fun. I love riding bike.
I decided ten miles was about as far as I wanted to go, so I decided that a cycle out to Winton and then back home on the old road would be a great start to the season. Winton is four miles from my home on Harvey Street, and the old road between Ely and Winton is a nice way to come back home, because the hills aren’t so steep. Riding to Winton is easy, because it’s mostly down hill. If you’re looking to build your endurance riding the main highway back to Ely is almost a three mile ride; and it is all up hill. Riding the old road home is lots easier and way more fun. Generally speaking I prefer riding what I call; The Paths of Least Resistance. If there is an easy way to take a ride, then usually that’s the way I want to go.
I spotted a single robin in a neighbor’s yard yesterday hunting earth worms in the warm sunshine. She was the first robin of the year. I hope I never get past the excitement and wonder of seeing the first robin of spring. The starlings and crow scouts have been around for weeks now, but there is something about seeing that first robin of spring that stirs something deep inside me. Today, as if to reinforce the changing of seasons, I spotted a pair of robins gathering up bits and pieces as they start to build a new nest where they will raise one or two batches of a new generation.
Many people who walk or ride bike have music piped into their heads, but I prefer to listen to the natural sounds as I ride along. Today I was rewarded by hearing the wonderful music of geese making their way north for another summer. Ely isn’t a big place for geese. We have a few small local flocks, but most of the geese will move on to places more suited to their needs. What they needed this morning was open water where they could rest in safety. They found what they needed on the Shagawa River. When I got close to the river I could see and hear that the river was full of Canada Geese and Golden Eye Ducks. The thing that makes Golden Eyes special is they are the only duck that winters over in places like Ely. All they need is a little open water, so they gather around rapids that never freeze. They are also the only duck that can swallow underwater.
I took out my binoculars and had a good lock at the wonder of an unfolding spring. I closed my eyes as another flock of twenty honkers, who were riding an easy blowing south wind decided to join their cousins on the Shagawa River. The sound of honking geese entered into my soul. They were so close overhead that I could hear the whooshing sound of their powerful wings, and hear the flock of twenty three as they splashed down in the river. I started counting geese and I stopped when the count reached a hundred and fifty birds. Then I continued on my way, peddling away to the joyful sound of spring geese happily honking away; enjoying the open water.
This time of year people start watching the ice trying to gage how long it will take before we see open water. Each year hundreds of people send in their guesses as to when the ice will leave Shagawa Lake. The last time I saw Shagawa Lake was a few weeks back when I was on a pair of skis, and judging by what I saw when I looked out from the south shore of the lake, was that if I wanted to, I could still be skiing on Shagawa Lake. It will be a few more weeks I think before we will see open water on Shagawa Lake, so there is still time to get your guess into the Ely Echo. I was about to put my binoculars away when I noticed a bird high up in the sky, and when I focused in on the bird, I could see it was a Bald Eagle heading north looking for its patch of open water and maybe a dinner of fish after a long day of travel.
A week ago spring seemed a long way off, but after seeing Canada Geese swimming on open water, and robins singing in the morning, spring for Ely and the Boundary Waters doesn’t seem so far off today.
April 7, 2011 by Mike Hillman
 “You’re listening to?”
In days past, WELY was a radio station where many had the opportunity to offer their talents, music and personal time through volunteering. Dozens of on-air personalities past, no longer given the opportunity, left us a piece of themselves for all ages and interests to enjoy, even participate, and the range of listeners were offered their choice of what appealed to them.
Today, if we choose, we listen to several personalities whose talents are good but limited because of commercial parameters and a so called program director. Why can’t we have a community supported radio station like WTIP in Grand Marais (wtip.org) or WOJB in LaCourderai Wisconsin, (wojb.org). Tune them in, here the difference and visit their websites. They produce exceptional programing, educational for many interests, and a vast variety of music and information, using NPR and MPR, eliminating the canned commercial crap and redundant syndicated voice that belongs on KQ and WEVE, not our home town station. This is not, back in 1995, what Charles Kuralt envisioned.
So, why can’t we?
Mark Haarman
April 4, 2011
by Mike Hillman
To heck with Economic Development; it is an economic stimulus I’m after. Each year since 1996, the City of Ely paid $48,000.00 dollars to the Ely Area Economic Development Agency for economic development to our area. They have been doing this for fifteen years now, and in all that time, if anyone can tell me anything the EADA has really done for economic development anywhere near the city of Ely, I’d like to hear about it. This blogger is glad the council decided to pull Ely’s share of the funding for the EADA. If I had my way, I’d take the forty eight thousand dollars and divide it equally among every man, woman, and child living within the city limits. I would pay this in Ely Bucks that can only be spent in Ely. If there are three thousand people living here then each person living in Ely would get $160.00 in Ely bucks to spend as they see fit. Nobody would be able to make a mortgage payment or take a long vacation, but I bet a lot of local merchants would love to see three thousand people strutting the streets of town with a fist full of Ely Bucks. We pay the money once a year each March when the town needs as much stimulating as it can get, and we do this each and every year. It could be the start of a campaign to bring people to town, because we could honestly say that it pays to live in Ely.
A major referendum for the Ely School System will soon be put to a vote, what do you think and what questions do you have that need to be answered before you can make an informed decision?
 In letters to the editors of local newspapers Tom Landwehr, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, revealed his firm beliefs and displayed his lack of understanding of the situation and a lack of critical thinking ability.
Mr. Landwehr firmly believes the shooting of collared research animals during the normal Black Bear hunt is the best approach. One usually believes something or one believes something else. I suppose gritting ones teeth or sweating during one’s belief may seem to some as MORE or STONGER belief than AVERAGE. To me, it implies he is RELALLY trying to convince himself along with everyone else. He also does not explain why the shooting of collared bears is a good idea. He does make many excuses for such activities. We may be able to forgive him as he may still be a bit woozy from the “dizzying array of issues” he has had to endure during his first six weeks on the job. And, in such fury, it may be easier to keep the status quo than thoroughly analyzing the benefits of both alternatives. It may be easier to keep things as they are, but it may not be the best for all concerned to do so.
Mr. Landwehr belittles public emotion on the issue and sees research desires opposed to pragmatism as well as private interests against the public good. Since he doesn’t explain how this is so, I believe most would not see these as diametrically opposed. The type of research Dr. Lynn Rogers does is pragmatic, yes interesting and popular. No telling how useful in might be to the state. The DNR is so parochial about its own type of population management “science” it can’t see any other science. To say it isn’t useful to the management of Minnesota’s, DNR ruled, black bear population is a moot point. The DNR does that type of research. Dr. Rogers’ research is beneficial to the public in ways apparently incomprehensible to the DNR and Mr. Landwehr and yes it is popular, very popular. It does not appear that Mr. Landwehr has looked at the positive economic benefit of Dr. Rogers research to the Ely area and possibly also the Orr area, and its bear center. This is not just an Ely “thing,” Dr. Rogers research is rapidly becoming a worldwide event. The DNR might want to capitalize on that popularity for the benefit of Minnesota by becoming a bit more cooperative in this popular movement.
Mr. Landwehr thinks that his department could not enforce a no-shoot policy. But, he suggests that Dr. Rogers approach Minnesota politicians to pass a bill protecting the bears. I fail to see how that would make enforcement any easier. If the DNR is forced, by law, to enforce the non-shooting of collared research animals then the DNR could enforce that law. Seems to me the non-enforceability varies depending on the motivation. Where there is a will, there is a way. Presently there is no will.
As far as the visibility of collars, that is a totally bogus argument. Unless a hunter is shooting at sounds and at times when it is not legal to hunt, or fails to properly identify his target, it is not possible to accidentally shoot a collared and brightly flagged black bear. If a hunter is that unable to distinguish his target he is a danger to everyone in the woods. It appears Mr. Landwehr is more concerned about protecting this even smaller population .11% of MN bear hunters (or, .002% of the MN population) from whatever penalties would be assessed than he is in protecting the .24% of the black bear population in Minnesota that is collared. “..singling out individual bears for protection is not a policy I support.” How does he equate a policy of protection of a subclass of a valuable public resource as singling out individuals? Yet sees nothing wrong with singling our a smaller percentage of the human population for protection (that small group of hunters who pay no attention to the DNR educational programs and prefer to hunt, choose, and kill valuable collared, flagged research bears). The longer Landwehr talks the less sense he makes.
Due to the firmness of his beliefs I do believe that we will need to contact as many politicians in MN as possible and explain why the shooting of collared black bears is such a negative for Minnesota and how positive it could be for Minnesota to have a policy or law prohibiting the shooting of collared bears.
 There was tension in the air at the EADA meet and greet meeting that felt like lightening building in a gathering storm. I was a little early, and after greeting several of the board members, I took my seat at one of the two tables in the board room of the Technology Center. Both WELY and Ely TV were there, and the EADA was there to discuss Project Firefly. I was there to finally find out just what Project Firefly was, and what it was going to do to benefit Ely. I was a gadfly looking for a Firefly. I could almost see it glimmer and fade off in the distance, and I heard a lot about it, but I never got a good look at it. Essentially I wanted to know how two hundred thousand dollars of grant money was spent, and to what purpose it was spent. The meeting was conducted by Bill Roloff who acted as a spokesperson for Project Firefly. I can tell you Project Firefly is there to help local inventors working on potentially important projects that if nurtured to fruition, may someday create jobs in Ely in the not too distant future. I can not tell you who those people are or just what inventions they are working on. I asked about patents and they told me be patient. Being a gadfly I pressed to know something of just what those projects were. I was told it was none of my business, because it is a private matter between the EADA and the inventors. By the end of the hour the meeting had reached a point of calling all this interest in Firefly, and how the money was spent, was nothing but a witch hunt against Bill Roloff. I wasn’t hunting Bill Roloff, I was chasing fireflies. I am still chasing Firefly.
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