Janet (Wainright) Hunt 77 of Stanwood died Sunday, May 27, 2018 at her home. Janet was born November 8, 1940 in Cedar Springs, Michigan the daughter of Murville “Charlie” and Shirley (Empie) Misner. Surviving are her husband, Mark; children, Philip (Gloria) Wainright, Ilene (Kevin) Shell, Beverly Richards, Steven (Julie) Wainright; 9 grandsons; 9 great-grandchildren whom she loved dearly and spent as much time with as she could. Sisters, Marlene Ledford, Shirley Merlington, Joyce Johnson, Verdena (Jude) Martin, Lou Ellen (Gene) Fisk; many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents; first husband and children’s father, Robert Wainright; second husband, Jarvis Miller; daughter, Ruth Warner; sister, Nancy Westervelt; brothers, Mick Misner and Arloe Misner. The family greeted friends Wednesday, May 30 from 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. at the Bliss-Witters & Pike Funeral Home, Cedar Springs where the service will be held Thursday, May 31 at 10:30 a.m. Philip Wainright officiating. Interment Rockford Cemetery. Memorial contributions to Spectrum Health Hospice or the Church of the Full Gospel, Sand Lake. Her hard work is now complete and her faith has become sight.

Arrangements by Bliss-Witters & Pike Funeral Home, Cedar Springs

Rachel and Joshua Hunt, of Grand Rapids, are happy to announce the birth of their son, Atlas Reed Hunt, born on Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 9:43 p.m., at Butterworth Hospital, in Grand Rapids.

Atlas is welcomed home by proud grandparents Steve and Judy Reed, of Cedar Springs, and David and Julie Hunt, of Plainwell; and great-grandparents Bill and Pat Campbell, of Big Rapids, and Les and Jean Green, of Delton.

Jack Payne with a recent 2013 buck shot with a weird rack and loaded on the deer cart.

By Jack Payne

The hurried sound of leaves crunching under hooves meant one thing. A buck was chasing does that were not ready for his advances. Sure enough a group of deer came trotting by and a buck in pursuit.

Scrapes and rubs are all excellent items to consider but other things can spell success quicker. First and foremost is hunting the does. The does normally dictate what scrapes will be re-opened and used the most.

Find out where the does are bedding and feeding and the bucks will show up. The best locations are where the deer feel most secure during the daylight hours. The closer the security area is to a hot food source the better buck potential.

Cornfields are a magnet in our area. A thick swale, a pine plantation, river bottoms or a swamp are examples of good daytime cover. An overlooked area is a drainage ditch.

Having shot a buck on October I decided to try some fall turkey hunting. Jumped two bucks bedding in a corn field and one was an eight pointer. Bow in the truck and the buck looking at me a mere ten yards away. Can’t get a bedding area closer to a food source than a cornfield.

Carrying my camera while filming a few geese I jumped a nice fork horn bedded in a dried out drainage ditch. A cornfield on one side, a soybean field on the other with a briar patches on the end. Perfect area for a buck to rut and stay fairly hidden.

Keeping a stand just for the rut or having two stands to hunt from is a good idea. Don’t burn out a stand during the rut. Only hunt the stand when the wind is right and when accessing the stand without disturbing the deer.

Avoid walking over the runways when traveling. You heard this before but I will say it again, watch your scent. I wear Scent Lok from head to toe. Have a back up plan on how to get to your stand and the same when leaving. Don’t spook the deer and don’t leave any scent behind.

High ground in a swamp or a cattail marsh is an excellent all day location to hunt. The key is sliding in early and being undetected. Another good choice would be a small woodlot or briar patch that the other hunters walk right by thinking that it is to small to hold any deer.

Locating a hot scrape that reeks is always fun. I don’t see a lot of deer when scrape hunting but normally you will see a hot doe and the buck. Using buck lure has proven productive for many. I’ve had excellent luck at times and other outings only luke warm. Rarely have I had any negative responses when using scent. I use scent all season! Tinks and Buck Fever are my favorites.

Decoys can be fun to use but only during the archery season for safety purposes. Placing a decoy between a hot scrape and your stand or on the fringe of good bedding cover might work. Spray the decoy with some buck lure and try grunting. My experiences with decoys is less than thrilling unless watching a deer jump up in the air and then busting out. Only once did it actually draw in a buck for me but a friend has enjoyed great success.

Besides having faith in scent we use calling on each hunt. I call softly 3-5 one-second burps every 15-30 minutes. If I see a deer I call immediately. Once again, soft and short works the best. Get the buck to turn his head and let curiosity take over. Nearly every archery tag filled had calling involved.

Staying alert and checking out all sounds is important. After a few hours and especially after a month of sitting in a stand hunters get a bit lazy. Any sound could be a deer and often the soft and slow noise is a feeding deer heading your way.

The rut normally heats up around Halloween and continues through the opener of the gun season. Nothing beats the sound of leaves rustling and seeing a nervous doe file bye followed by the sound of a deer grunting. Hunt the rut properly not only will you see a buck, one might end up in the freezer.

www.jackpaynejr.com, realtor/writer

CS grad on mission with Jamaican deaf school

Rachel Hunt (left center), her husband, Josh (right center), and other members of the Jamaica mission team and friends.

By Judy Reed

Rachel (Reed) Hunt loves kids and they love her, too. And now, for the fourth time, the 2003 graduate of Cedar Springs High School has taken that love, along with a team of Cornerstone University students, and shared that love with deaf children in Jamaica.
Hunt graduated from Cornerstone University in 2008 with a BA in Accounting, and with an MBA in 2011. She is also staff accountant at the university.
She was in her senior year (2008) at Cornerstone when she heard there was a mission trip forming for Jamaica, in conjunction with Jamaica Link Ministries, based in Grand Rapids. She joined the team and handled their finances on the trip. The small mission team stayed at Fairhaven Ministries, and worked at the Jamaica Christian School for the Deaf for 10 days, redoing their library. “We stripped it down, catalogued books, set them up by genre, set up the computer and scanners, made it like a real library,” recalled Rachel. They also played with the kids at the school during downtime, did devotions at public schools, and visited an orphanage for the severely disabled.

Team members help mix cement for addition.

After the first trip, she was hooked. In 2009 she went with a team to Mexico, but in 2010 she co-led the next trip to Jamaica, and then headed up the trips in May 2011 and January 2012. Each time they’ve worked with the Jamaica School for the Deaf and Robin’s Nest orphanage.
Rachel said the goal was to foster a relationship and build connections with the children and people there. “A lot of teams go to the school for a day and then are gone,” she explained. “So when a team comes and stays, they get very excited. Some of the kids recognized me as soon as I got there,” she said of her most recent trip.
In 2010, Rachel and the team helped with construction on the school’s kindergarten building, by filling in the foundation, and mixing and pouring cement for the ceiling. Last spring they bought windows for the entire kindergarten building and helped with painting. On the most recent trip, they helped with the addition of a second floor to the kindergarten building by mixing and filling cinder blocks with cement. “We helped them get ready for the bigger teams that will be going there this summer,” she said.

Josh Hunt holds a sleeping Jamaican child.

The teams from Cornerstone are usually small—only 5-11 people. But the smaller size helps the relationship be more intimate. And that growing relationship is what Rachel likes best about the trips. “We have been able to make such an impact on the people in such a consistent way. Our picture from two years ago is still up on their file cabinet (at the JCSD). It’s a special connection.”
While the team sees some change in members from year to year, one special addition to the team this year was Rachel’s new husband, Josh. The two got to work together, and he got to see firsthand what she loves about the place. “Josh was the muscle of the team,” she said with a laugh. “But really, I liked showing him a place that was like a second home.”
It was Josh’s first mission trip. “I liked that it was an opportunity to connect with another culture, and that we were invited to work and help them,” said Josh. He also expressed an interest in going back.
The group did have some down time. After working they played with the children, and had their own bonding times as a group in the evening, playing cards, board games, uploading their daily blog, and sometimes swimming in the ocean, which was right across the street. They also saw some of the sights and visited the marketplace.
Rachel said one of the neatest things is to see what some of the students that were on the team in the past are now doing because of their experience. “We had one guy lead a trip from his church to Jamaica, and a girl who went on the trip in the spring and this month is going back to Jamaica this summer to live and help out at the Jamaica Christian School for the Deaf. Another went on the trip to see if she liked being out of the country, and then went to Korea for a semester to study. For those who think they might want to be a missionary, it’s a good way to see what it’s like,” she said.
Rachel said that her goal is to continue the trips, and build on the relationships they’ve established with the people. But she’s confident that can continue with others, if for some reason she can’t go in the future. She said the trips are sometimes open to others, and if other organizations are interested, they can also contact Jamaica Link at www.jamaicalink.org to set up their own trip.
For more info on Jamaica Christian School for the Deaf, visit www.jcsdeaf.org, and for Cornerstone University, visit www.cornerstone.edu.

Steve and Judy Reed, of Cedar Springs, and David and Julie Hunt, of Plainwell, are happy to announce the marriage of their children, Rachel Anne Reed and Joshua David Hunt.
The couple was married at Johnson Park, in Grandville, Michigan, on September 16, with Reverend Charles Smith officiating.
Attendants of the bride were Mike Nowak (friend), Erin Greenhoe (friend) and Jessica Prater (sister of the bride).
Attendants of the groom were Levi Hunt (brother of the groom) and Steven Reed (brother of the bride).
Ringbearer was Landon Prater, nephew of the bride.
The reception followed at the enclosed shelter in Johnson Park, and the couple honeymooned in Cancun. They live in Grand Rapids.
Rachel is a 2003 graduate of Cedar Springs High School, and 2008 & 2011 graduate of Cornerstone University (BA, MBA). She is staff accountant at Cornerstone University. Josh is a 2003 graduate of Delton Kellogg High School and 2008 graduate of Kalamazoo Valley Community College. He is employed by Meijer.
Proud grandparents of the couple are Bill and Pat Campbell, of Big Rapids, and Les and Jean Green, of Plainwell.