CALUMET July 23 was an exciting and fun-filled day at the Calumet Theatre. The Theatre hosted the well-loved Blooze Brothers concert and held its Grand Raffle drawing during the concert intermission. The winning tickets were drawn by Jake and Elwood Blooze on the stage, accompanied by the Raffle Committee and Executive Director Laura Miller.

The Theatre gave away $12,275 in 10 cash prizes. The winners were: first place – Joe Trevethan (photo attached); second place – John Marta; third place – Don & Shirley Rosenberger; fourth place – Art Kreivi’s CSP Team; fifth place – Team Bersa 2; sixth place – John Marta; seventh place – Callista Lee; eighth place – Joe Lett; ninth place – Jamie Harter; 10th place – Ed LaBonte; and 11th place – two tickets to all 2017 stage events went to James Johnson.

Ace Hardware, Auto Value of Houghton & Calumet, and

Pizza Works of Houghton helped sell raffle tickets outside of Theatre Box Office hours. Additional support was provided by Harvey Hoyum, Paulette Archambeau, Debbie Manderfield, Irving Riutta Contracting, AmericInn, J & J Broadcasting-WMPL & WKMJ, Houghton Community Broadcasting -WCCY, K-BEAR, WOLF, River Valley Bank, and Jess Wiinamaki of W-Design & Advertising.

The money from the Grand Raffle pushed the Theatre over its “Lift Us Up” elevator goal of $300,000! A portion of the money went to operational support. The Board of Directors have decided that the 2016 Grand Raffle would be its last one. “We have reached many of the goals that we set back in 2011 when it started and are still using some of the funds to complete the building’s long maintenance list. We are grateful to the community for supporting our efforts by buying raffle tickets that netted us $105,075 in six years. Without this kind of support we wouldn’t be able to keep improving the Theatre building,” said Raffle Committee Chair, Art Limback who suggested the raffle idea in 2010.