Norah Brumbaugh and Mirah Dougherty started the Diabetes Awareness Club at Defer Elementary when they were second graders, shortly after Norah was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Now fifth graders, they brought their mission of spreading awareness with them to Pierce Middle School.
Meanwhile, their younger sisters, Hannah Brumbaugh and Molly Dougherty, both third graders, have continued the tradition at Defer, along with their classmate, Annabelle Carver. The three serve as club president, vice president and secretary.
“We want people to be aware about what diabetes really is so that people can understand what people with diabetes go through,” Molly said.
Hannah said that even though it was her older sister who had diabetes, she felt as if it was happening to her, too.
“She’s my sister and she’s so close to me it felt scary to me,” she said. “She was at the hospital overnight and I had to stay with my grandma.”
That sense of closeness extends to her best friend Molly.
“Her sister was her best friend and I’m her best friend,” Molly said, “so I felt like since I’m so close to Hannah and Hannah is so close to Norah, I felt like I should be a part of it and help them get through it.”
Annabelle agreed, adding, “Even if we weren’t best friends, I still would have done it because I care about other people.”
The club meets every month on Wednesdays. At their meeting this week, members made posters encouraging classmates to wear blue on Friday, Nov. 12, in recognition of Diabetes Awareness Day on Sunday, Nov. 14. They also shared facts about the disease with fellow club members.
Serving as the club adviser is Norah and Hannah’s mother, Monica Brumbaugh, the speech language pathologist for the district.
“We have amazing students doing wonderful things for each other and the community,” Mrs. Brumbaugh said.
Across the street at Kercheval, the Diabetes Awareness Club meets after school on Thursdays. This week the group brainstormed on ways to spread awareness. They also came up with incentives for their classmates and made flyers encouraging classmates to wear blue on Monday.
Their adviser, fifth grade teacher Ian Fleming, also has type 1 diabetes. He was diagnosed when he was 17. While on a trip with his family in California, he collapsed on the side of the street and went into a coma.
Mr. Fleming had experienced many of the symptoms typical of early onset diabetes, such as weight loss, increased thirst and vision loss, but attributed these to normal byproducts of being an active teenager involved in sports.
Like his students, he maintains normal blood sugar levels through regular monitoring, insulin therapy, diet and exercise. He is grateful for the advances in technology that make this easier than the past, when he had to take daily shots. A pump provides his insulin and a continuous glucose monitor generates his blood sugar levels on his phone. He says he has maintained normal activities, including playing sports in high school and college.
“That’s probably the most important thing that we do here,” Norah said, “letting people know it’s not dangerous; it’s not anything they should really be concerned about, but it’s something they should know about. It’s actually very common.”
“It’s important to spread awareness because I know how it affects people and I know how important it is that they get the care that they need,” Mirah said. “I really want more people to know more about diabetes and to know that it’s important.”
Norah is happy to see her younger sister continuing to spread awareness at Defer.
“I really appreciate that she agreed to carry the club on,” she said. “Maybe I’ll even get my little brother to do it when he gets over there. He’s 4 right now but he’ll be at Defer next year in kindergarten.”
Defer Principal Lisa Rheaume commended all the students for their advocacy.
“I’m proud of the work of the Diabetes Awareness Clubs at both Defer and Pierce,” she said.
North Wellness Fair stresses self-care
Grosse Pointe North’s mental health team hosted a Wellness Fair this week — perfectly timed to help reduce the stress from the end of the first quarter last week.
The goal was to give students wellness strategies they can continue to use throughout the year. North’s media center was transformed into a fair, with a variety of self-care stations for students to engage in strategies as well as learn why scheduling time for self-care can help.
The mental health team also brought the fair to American Literature classes on Wednesday and students were able to drop in throughout the day during tutorials, lunch or immediately after school on Thursday.
Alumni Through the Decades
Harry Kurtz
Grosse Pointe High School
Class of 1968
Lynn McGarvah Kurtz
Grosse Pointe South High School
Class of 1969
In their nearly 36 years of marriage, Harry and Lynn Kurtz have experienced one minor point of marital contention.
Which one of them was a member of the last graduating class at The High?
Harry, who graduated in 1968, claims his class was the last class to graduate from what was then Grosse Pointe High School, the spring before the newly built Grosse Pointe North High School opened its doors to freshmen, sophomores and juniors.
Lynn, a member of the class of 1969, said if she didn’t in fact graduate from The High, then she is owed another diploma; printed on the one she received 52 years ago is “Grosse Pointe High School.”
Harry points out that the Board of Education officially renamed what was once the only high school in town in November of 1967, so technically neither he or Lynn graduated from The High.
“There was so much confusion about it that the board that was in power at the time kind of screwed things up,” he said. “It was perhaps already South when we were going there and North hadn’t even opened yet, which was nonsense. We ended up lobbying the school board to officially state that the Class of 1968 was the last class to graduate from Grosse Pointe High.”
On Sept. 17, 2018, the school board unanimously approved a resolution declaring the Class of 1968 the last class to graduate from Grosse Pointe High. This, in turn, makes the Class of 1969 the first to graduate from Grosse Pointe South.
Harry and Lynn grew up on opposite sides of town. Lynn lived in Grosse Pointe Shores, attending Ferry and Parcells. Harry grew up in Grosse Pointe Park and went to Trombly and Pierce. Today, after living in the City of Grosse Pointe for a while, the couple live in the Shores, where they raised their two daughters, Sarah and Lindsey. Both girls attended Grosse Pointe North, graduating in 2004 and 2006, respectively.
“They got a great education at North, which we were very pleased with,” Harry said. “They were both presidents of their student associations and spoke at their commencements.”
Sarah studied journalism at Northwestern University and received an M.B.A. at the University of Michigan, and Lindsey attended Vanderbilt as an undergraduate, going on to earn a M.Ed. in Community Development and Action there as well.
While Lynn and Harry graduated one year apart and knew each other in high school, sharing mutual friends, they didn’t start dating until eight years after Lynn graduated.
One of Lynn’s strongest recollections from high school was how crowded the hallways were. She believes she was in the largest graduating class on record and partly attributes her choice of Olivet, a small liberal arts college in Michigan, to this fact.
“I needed to find myself after being in a sea of classes,” she said.
After receiving a master’s degree from Michigan State University, Lynn went on to work as a vocational rehabilitation counselor. She has provided expert witness testimony in social security disability hearings and served for a number of years as a sentencing consultant on Grosse Pointe area DUI court cases.
Lynn also has been active in the Grosse Pointe Shores Improvement Foundation, serving in a variety of capacities as a board member, officer, project committee chair and president while working on and leading several major community improvement projects.
Harry attended Macomb Community College, Wayne Community College, Detroit School of Technology and Wayne State University. Initially, after working at a funeral home during college, he thought he wanted to be a funeral director. Then he decided to go into business for himself, starting out with pinball machines.
After his foray as a pinball wizard, he went into the specialty trailer business. His company, Triune Specialty Trailers, develops mobile exhibits, mobile marketing and mobile defense and health care vehicles.
Harry has been involved in producing civil rights and Black history exhibits, along with a traveling exhibit of Abraham Lincoln that made its way to a number of Grosse Pointe schools.
One of his most formative memories from his high school days was when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Grosse Pointe to speak at Grosse Pointe High School in 1968. Harry was among a group of teenagers who took it upon themselves to protest against the protestors. One of them even threw a snowball at the protestors, causing the police to tell them to go home “or they would tell our parents.”
That experience, and witnessing the Detroit Rebellion the year before, had a profound effect on Harry.
“It opened my eyes to a lot of things,” he said. “It gave me a sense of appreciation for Black history and certainly Dr. King, who has been featured in some of the exhibits that I produced.”
Today, Lynn enjoys retirement while Harry still keeps himself busy with work, admitting he “has a little trouble with retirement.” They have two grandchildren, as Sarah and Lindsey each have a daughter.
Lynn celebrated a birthday on Nov. 9, and Harry gave her a gift he’s not so sure she appreciated — a Grosse Pointe South sweatshirt.
South Pointe Players present ‘Almost, Maine’
Grosse Pointe South’s Pointe Players are opening their 2021-22 season next week with a production of John Cariani’s Almost, Maine. Made up of nine short plays, Almost, Maine explores love and loss in a remote, mythical town called Almost.
“This witty, magically realistic look at how we experience love, promises an evening of surprises,” director/producer Meaghan Dunham said. “We have a production team of experienced young thespians coordinating with an outstanding cast and live musicians committed to bringing this extraordinary evening of theater to life.”
The PAC staff designed the set and lights, while students designed set dressing, costumes, properties, promotion, programs, as well as much of the music and sound.
Shows are at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 18, Friday, Nov. 19, and Saturday, Nov. 20 in South’s auditorium. Tickets will be available at lunches next week and at the door for $10 for students and senior citizens and $15 for adults.
“Almost, Maine has been an incredible experience for all of us,” Mrs. Dunham said. “Hope to see you at the show!”
School Pointes is a publication of the Grosse Pointe Public School System. To submit story ideas or Pointes of Pride, email info@gpschools.org.