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What we need is more holidays

From '8 Mile' to 'Out of Sight' to 'The Crow,' Michigan has provided the settings for some seriously great films.

Influenced by craftsmen like Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Ryan Bingham, Willie Nelson, Chris Knight, and more, his two already released LPs, Seneca and How the Mighty Fall, showcase an artist born at the cross section of blue-collar sensibilities, cinematic country-folk soundscapes, and sharp-minded songwriting.

Dick Kernen, a giant of Michigan broadcasting who boosted the careers of countless familiar on-air voices and faces, died of natural causes Friday at home in Dearborn, his family confirmed. He was 82. Kernen, who started with WXYZ-AM in the '50s and helped form WRIF-FM in the '70s, was vice president of industry relations at the Specs Howard School of Media Arts in Southfield, where he had worked since 1972. A 2003 Michigan Broadcasting Hall of Fame inductee, Kernen was a guiding hand — both inside and outside Specs Howard — to some of the best-known names on the local airwaves in recen...

Few working in media had the kind of quiet impact that Dick Kernen did during his lengthy career. Especially in his role as placement director and chief ambassador of the Specs Howard School of Media Arts in Southfield, Kernen — who passed away Friday, Dec. 18, at age 82, from natural causes — was behind, without exaggeration, thousands of careers in the radio, television and communications industry. Much-loved and well-respected, Kernen was known as "Uncle Dick" around the school and valued for his advice, advocacy and insight — and for an endless array of stories about alumni...