Saginaw High School football player Rashaan Williams appears to be on fire while taking a break during a game vs. Midland High School. The athlete’s sweat and the cold night air produced a full head of steam.Flames explode through the front of Winters Floor Covering on State in Saginaw Township, while a Saginaw Township firefighter works to move a hose away from the intense heat. Firefighters could not extinguish the flames that were burning between the building’s two roofs. They evacuated the business and kept the blaze from spreading to neighboring buildings.Latasha Owens looks at the bullet-riddled mirror in the living room of her house where her 12-year-old nephew Tamaris “T.J.” Steward Jr. was shot and killed. Someone fired more than 10 shots into the house on Saginaw’s East Side.A tug breaks up ice around the barge McKee Sons, stuck in the ice in Saginaw Bay 15 miles north of Bay City.A rooster keep his distance as firefighters from several departments pour water onto a fire that destroyed a home in Taymouth Township. Fire departments from Taymouth Township, Maple Grove Township, Albee Township and Birch Run had to truck water in by tanker to fight the fire.John Cudworth pushes his daughter Ema through blowing snow in the Kroger parking lot in Green Acres Plaza on State Street in Saginaw Township. Heavy snow overnight caused the closing of government offices, cancelation of local schools and other services.Referee Donnell Thomas plays around with DJ Evans after DJ’s basketball game at the Saginaw Y. Thomas is a senior at Saginaw High School. He could have been destined for the streets and gangs, but is not. Through positive mentoring programs Donnell has become a supervisor for the YMCA Teen Center and referees basketball for young children at the Y and the Salvation Army.Anthony A. Kanuszewski rejoices that his pool was not destroyed by falling trees from severe storms. His home, in the background at the corner of Stanley and Grout in Saginaw, was heavily damaged when a large tree fell onto the house and punctured the roof causing a large hole. Kanuszewski was cooling off in the water and keeping his wits and sense of humor about him.Hans LaRock isn’t really swimming through a load of cucumbers. He’s spreading them out so they will fit better in the11-foot deep wooden tank to process into pickles at Hausbeck Pickle Co. in Saginaw. Levi Ecker and his wife Lois Ecker swing at Community Village where they are residents.A Kochville Township firefighter talks to a towtruck operator about how to move two delivery trucks involved in a crash at the intersection of Mackinaw and Pierce Rds. in Kochville Twp. The UPS truck was traveling northbound on Mackinaw when it collided with a Federal Express truck that was traveling eastbound on Pierce. The driver of the FedEx truck was taken to a local hospital with minor injuries.Olatunji Kean sits in Chief Circuit Court Judge Leopold P. Borrello’s courtroom by a picture of former judge Fred J. Borchard during a recess. Kean was gagged with duct tape during his armed robbery trial after he was continually disruptive.Justin Owens of Madison Heights holds his cousin Alex Owens of Clawson as they soak in the mist from a Cool Zone cooling unit. The Detroit Lions provided an area with four misters for fans to cool down from the high-humidity and 90-degree heat during the first day of training camp at SVSU.Kid Rock bumps fists with a fan during his concert at Wendler Arena in TheDow Event Center in downtown Saginaw.Mary E. Grover of Davisburg tearfully embraces her nephew LCpl. Jesse Anderson of Imlay City after he and about 20 Saginaw-based Marines arrived by bus at the Saginaw Training Center. The Marines are part of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, Fourth Marine Division based out of Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Mount Clemens. They are returning home after nearly a year of service in Al Anbar province of Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.People cheer President Barack Obama while watching his inaugural speech on a large screen during an inauguration party at the Temple Theatre in Saginaw. About 700 people attended.A group of hourly and salaried workers from Delphi Energy and Chassis Saginaw Operations holds hands and prays silently together outside the plant during one of their early afternoon breaks in 2006. They are praying for the future of Delphi as the automotive parts manufacturer works its way through bankruptcy. Tamieka Shannon of Bridgeport, center with Delphi Chassis jacket, has worked for the company for six years.Wanda Skillman looks through the remnants of her burned-out trailer in Marion Township after the trailer and its contents were completely destroyed by a fire. She lived there with her three teenage boys.Numerous lightning strikes accompanied thunderstorms that rumbled through Saginaw and Genesee counties. A huge bolt struck near West Forest United Methodist Church on Farrand Road at the corner of Taylor Road in northeast Genesee County.Hi-Five Guy Dave St. Sauver, of Midland, top, poses for a photo with Joan Phillips of Dearborn Heights, in Wenonah Park during the Tall Ship Celebration in Bay City.Homes along West Michigan near the Tittabawassee River in Saginaw Township are flooded, April 22, 2013. Area rivers overflowed their banks over the weekend after days of heavy rain saturated the ground.A migrant family from Texas waits for their youngest member as they prepare to pray before dinner. They were in Michigan to work farm fields in Midland County.Karissa Rindhage Schultz marvels at her three-month-old son Mark Schultz in their Saginaw home. Karissa was diagnosed with hypoparathyroidism when she was very young. The disease caused seizures and confined her to a wheelchair. She also never thought she could have children. Now with the help of medication she can walk and had a healthy pregnancy.Under brilliant fall colors, Dan Matthies, owner of Chateau Fontaine Vineyards, checks on his grape vines in Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula.A frustrated Saginaw firefighter watches a house on Sheridan burn as aerial ladder trucks were positioned to fight the fire. It took the fire department a while to bring the blaze under control. After they extinguished the fire, firefighters brought out salvageable antiques, paintings and family pictures from the heavily damaged home. They were clearly frustrated fighting this fire as many of them made comments on their shortage of manpower.Shaded from the hot sun, a spectator watches a beach volleyball match along the Lake Michigan shore in Muskegon.Family members of the victim console each outside the All Star Liquor store on Saginaw’s southeast side. An 18-year-old man was shot to death inside the store.Saginaw firefighters remove a kink from a hose as they extinguish a fire that damaged a house at 417 S. 15th in Saginaw. The residential roads in the area were all ice-covered making driving difficult and footing slippery.Red McRae of Essexville pulls in a 12-inch walleye while fishing on the Saginaw River just off 1st Street. McRae put the fish back in the water since he said the minimum legal size is 15 inches. Fisherman near him said the ice was about two inches thick. Michigan Sugar Co. billows steam into the cold air in the packround.Lillian Moreau jumps into the parade and hugs Sgt. Gary P. Germain as the 460th Supply and Service Company marches up Main St. in Midland. The parade welcomed home Gulf War Veterans.Longfellow Elementary School kindergartners Deonn Lowery, left, and Makeda Lee-DeBardelaben do their best ugly faces as part of national Kick Butts Day, an anti-smoking program. The students in teacher Karen Bronz’s kindergarten discussed the negative things about tobacco and smoking and then had the ugly face contest to see who could make the ugliest face reacting to smoking.Army Staff Sgt. Marcus Mueller, of Fort Benning, Ga., holds an American flag during a service for his friend Staff Sgt. Justin C. Jay at Roselawn Cemetery in Saginaw Township. Jay, originally from Saginaw, died in a motorcycle crash in Ft. Benning, Ga.Birches and maples are ablaze in fall colors at Tittabawassee Park in Tittabawassee Township. James Trommer hugs his seven-year-old daughter Lindsay in their living room by the family Christmas tree. Lindsay has been fighting leukemia which has put a damper on the holiday season.The neon bunny on top of the Klein-Berger Co. grain storage elevator in Saginaw shares his night time spotlight with a half moon.While clean laundry hangs on a line in the backyard, a Tri-Township firefighter douses the flames on a house that burned after a propane clothes dryer caught fire. The house in Fremont Township was heavily damaged by the fire.Elm Hall post office officer-in-charge Barbara J. Sheets stands in the doorway of the tiny Elm Hall post office waiting for customers on a slow Saturday morning. She waves at people as they drive by since the town is small enough for her to know all its residents. Elm Hall, Michigan, about 50 miles west of Saginaw in Gratiot County, has what residents believe is the second-smallest post office in the United States (they think there is one smaller in Florida). Many residents still come to the post office six days a week to pick up their mail and chat with their neighbors.Lynn A. Hunter waves for people to stop and eat for free in front of Poor Boy Woodworks in Saginaw, a business owned by her son and son-in-law. The owners of the business, which makes wooden signs for sale in country stores, cooked hot dogs and offered them for free, with chips and soda, to people walking or driving by. They wanted people to celebrate their freedom and honor those serving in the military defending that freedom.Saginaw Police officer Patrick C. Shaltry compares foot size with five-year-old Wesley Brown during the annual African Cultural Festival in Saginaw.A grave marker leans against an old tree in John and Myrna Cammin’s private cemetery on Hawthorne near Brockway in Saginaw Township that John’s great-great grandfather, A. H. Swarthout, founded in 1835. The Pine Hill Swarthout/Cammin Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in Saginaw Township. Cammin tends graves, mows, leaf blows and plants flags each Memorial Day. Wars represented in the cemetery are the Civil War, Spanish American, indian wars from before Michigan’s statehood, WWI, WWII and Vietnam.Reflected in a downtown business, hundreds of students from Harrison’s Hillside Elementary School and residents line W. Main St. in downtown Harrison to pay their final respects to Cpl. Todd A. Motley of Clare, who died with three other soldiers during combat operations in Baghdad. After a memorial service, a funeral procession made the slow journey through downtown Harrison and then north along the US-127 business loop to Pleasant Plains Cemetery where Motley was buried. Hundreds of schoolchildren and local residents lined the streets and waved small American flags as the procession went by. People from all the businesses lining the streets along the route stepped out to pay their respect to Motley.Juvenile pheasants sit in the window of a barn on a farm where they are being raised for hunting clubs.Physical therapist assistant Debbie L. Gren works on range of motion on Courtney Sanders’ left leg in her room at Mary Free Bed in Grand Rapids. After Courtney’s leg was severely injured in a car wreck, doctors inserted a metal rod and screws to help it heal but she needed additional surgery to repair torn and damaged knee and ankle ligaments. Her right leg had to be amputated.Illustration for “Picking Spring Ties”Hemlock resident Ken R. Skuczas, left, kisses his wife of nine years Teri M. Skuczas while Saginaw Township resident Douglas M. Bowen, right, kisses his wife of 30 years Dawn A. Bowen after the pastor told the husbands “they could kiss the brides” during their wedding vow renewal ceremony at Wal-Mart in Saginaw Township. Five couples renewed their wedding vows at Wal-Mart as part of the launch of their new “Keepsake Diamonds” jewelry line. Wedding cake was served after.
