Jones

CALUMET — In a shake-up of the Calumet Theatre Co. Board of Directors at Monday’s annual membership meeting and election, Shannon Richter, the chairman of the Calumet Theatre Co. Board, was ousted from her position and replaced by a newly elected board member, Dan Jamison.

In a Tuesday press release, Calumet Theatre’s Marketing Director Bethany Jones announced that the annual membership meeting resulted in four new members of the Board of Directors:

— Bob Wareham.

— Dan Jamison, who was a write-in candidate.

— Michele Southerland

— Diane St. Amour.

In the release, Jones stated that 35 members were in were in attendance (combined Zoom and in-person). The in-person votes were made on paper ballots, and Zoom votes were made in an electronic poll format via Zoom webinar. Votes were collected by staff in an orderly manner, and tallies were made by the three Calumet Theatre staff persons present. Incumbents were Jerry Mitchell and Jody Menneguzo. New nominees were Bob Wareham, Michele Southerland, Diane St. Amour, and John Sullivan.

“Tonight was a huge win for the membership of the Calumet Theatre and (the) community as a whole,” wrote Jacob Mihelich, of the Advocates for the Calumet Theatre social media page. “As a membership, we expanded the board to nine members and filled the four open board seats with the individuals we as an advocates page have been campaigning for.”

Restructuring of the board came quickly. At the conclusion of the meeting and election, the board went into Executive Session to elect new officers, Jones stated in her release. Mihelich also posted the changes on the Advocates page:

— Dan Jamison, chairman.

— Michele Southerland, treasurer.

— Dianne St. Amour, secretary.

— Bob Wareham.

— Shannon Richter.

— Sam Lockwood.

— Trisha Narhi.

Penny Shute Menze, a former board member, in a statement on the web page, wanted a correction made to the record, which is, she stated, the board was not expanded by four, it had been reduced to nine.

Menze also publicly expressed her disapproval over Richter having former board member, Rebecca Glotfelty, forcibly removed from the membership meeting by a Michigan State trooper when she continued to demand the right, as a member, to see the financial statements of the theater.

Another former member of the board, who was present at the meeting, and spoke with the Daily Mining Gazette on the condition of anonymity, said the trooper was stationed by the back door of hall, but nobody knew why.

“Rebecca asked a very pointed question that Shannon and Trish Narhi (then treasurer) were not interested in answering,” they said. “She kept it up and kept it up, and they tried to make her shut up and she wouldn’t. So Shannon had this state police guy come back and remove her from the building.”

He said Glotfelty was subsequently cited for disturbing the peace. Glotfelty was unavailable for comment at press time.

Jones, who is also performing the tasks of the business director for the theater, stated in her release:

“I want to personally welcome our new Board of Director members. I look forward to working with each of you to move the Calumet Theatre forward. We want our new board members to know that we recognize that staff roll-overs and 18 months of pandemic lockdowns have been detrimental to the healing and regrowth of the Theatre’s activities. I’m here to help and to fix as well as improve. The first big show of the season was just this past Saturday, Boy Band Review and was a great success. We need to put aside the past and look to the future to get our historic Calumet Theatre back to it’s former glory and hopefully improve it to everyone’s benefit. We hope to see everyone back in our theatre this season.”