Cheboygan stone finds new home as part of Otsego fountain - Gaylord, MI - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

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The stone now sitting atop the pedestal on the fountain under construction in front of the Otsego County Building possibly could be considered sort of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree of rocks.

Recall in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” how Charlie fell in love with a forlorn little fir tree amid the glitz and glamour of all the huge, bright metal trees in the lot.

Well, perhaps this 6-foot tall, almost 4-ton rock was not quite so forsaken — even though the stone had resided for nine years at Blaine’s Excavating and Landscaping in Cheboygan, according to owner Blaine LaVigne. It just hadn’t found the right home yet.

Then along came John Burt, Otsego County administrator, who just happened to be seeking a stone for the new fountain gracing the county building lawn. He and Ed Hunt of Integrity Construction, the general contractor for the county building lawn project, visited Blaine’s to look at stones.

“I have a lot of quite large stones,” LaVigne said. “The guys in Gaylord found out I had a few to choose from, and I told them to come and pick one out.”

And Burt found the rock that had long been in LaVigne’s collection to be the perfect fit.

“I picked it out based on it having a shape somewhat reminiscent of the shape of Michigan as well as liking the patterns on the stone,” Burt said. “I love the stone. I think it looks like it belongs in Gaylord.”

The stone is now at its new home in Gaylord. With the help of Loshaw Crane, it was delivered to the county building, and placed and secured on the fountain pedestal in about 90 minutes on Nov. 17.

Burt said the fountain stone idea came early in the lawn project planning.

“Through our design process we arrived at having the stone on the fountain pretty quickly,” Burt said. “It just seemed a natural. Kevin Makarewicz at C2AE deserves a lot of credit for helping guide the process.”

C2AE is the project designer.

Burt also noted that there will be five spigots of water representing the five headwaters in Otsego County — the AuSable, Black, Manistee, Pigeon and Sturgeon rivers — which will spray up toward the stone and then cascade down.

The bottom of the stone was shaved off to stand flat, taking its height down to between 5 and 5 1/2 feet, according to LaVigne. That piece was saved and has been embedded in the concrete sidewalk in front of the fountain.

LaVigne said he collects rocks and stones from around Cheboygan County, often through excavation projects where his business extricates rocks from places people don’t exactly want them, such as farm fields.

“I deliver a lot of stones to different people,” he said. “I have a yard full of different types of rocks, pudding stones, character rocks — just a lot of rocks.”

Type of publication: Newspaper When was the article reported?: 11/27/2015 Publication: Petoskey News-Review Article Url: [Web Link] Is Registration Required?: no How widespread was the article reported?: local News Category: Arts/Culture

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