EDITOR’S NOTE: Superiorland Yesterdays is prepared by the reference staff at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette.

30 years ago

CHATHAM — In a wooded area just outside Chatham, Northern Michigan University instructor, Jeff Davis, lifts a rock, scoops up a salamander, and displays it to a group of attentive students. Davis, a herpetologist — one who studies reptiles and amphibians — is doing his master’s degree thesis on wood turtles. The 5 to 7 year-old students are participating in Natural Science Awareness, an educational outreach program in Alger County schools sponsored by the National Park Service. Funded by a three-year, $206,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation, the program uses guest instructors in a variety of fields to implement Michigan’s new science curriculum. Six-year-old Tricia Goodrich is impressed. “I learned today that insects are good, and we need them and shouldn’t hurt them,” she said. After Davis explained how turtles regulate body temperature by going in and out of the water, Dave Kronk, education specialist with Pictured Rocks, asks the children questions. “These kids,” Davis said with a wave of his hand, “are the key to the future.”

60 years ago

MARQUETTE — The production crew for Otto Preminger’s “Advise and Consent,” which will be shown at the Nordic Theatre Sunday through Wednesday, contains no less than 15 persons who worked on “Anatomy of a Murder” when that movie was filmed in Marquette County in 1959. Preminger produced and directed both films. Wendell Mayes, who wrote the screenplay for “Anatomy” from the novel by John D. Voelker of Ishpeming, also wrote the “Advise and Consent” screenplay. “Advise and Consent” is based on the best-selling novel about the U.S. Senate by Allen Drury. Its cast includes Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Don Murray, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Gene Tierney, Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres and Burgess Meredith.