Faces in the Crowd: Dan and Bonnie Blackledge

As a student at Winterfield Township’s Grandon School in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Dan Blackledge probably never imagined where his life would take him.
From the family’s Winterfield farm, to becoming a teacher in Kansas, to teaching in college; from starting and running businesses, to meeting his better half, Bonnie. And then right back to where it all began, in Winterfield Township.
And Bonnie, as a kid growing up in the ‘60s in Rockford, probably never imagined that she’d be running a farm [B&B Farms] and working as Winterfield Township Clerk in northern Michigan. This, after spending a career first as a teacher, and later as a township clerk in the Grand Rapids area.
But, as Bonnie might say, God has a way of putting you where you need to be.
The couple, who married in ’06, combined their two families and seven children into one. And with kids and grandkids who love the area and the farm just as much as they do, the couple wouldn’t have it any other way.
Their latest passion has been as co-chairs of the Marion District Library Committee. Educators by nature, and avid readers both, Dan and Bonnie are leading a committee to help keep our local library around. Their vision includes a library that can be sustained, funded, and improved for future generations.
We caught up with Dan and Bonnie recently and learned a little more about their story. We learned that these two are certainly more than just a couple of faces in the crowd.

Marion Press: Where were you born and raised?
Dan: I was born in Marion, Michigan. This house [on Haskell Road] is my grandpa’s [Simon Vanderwood] house, and I was born just a mile up the road here on Partridge. Graduated from Marion High School in ’66. [The Vanderwood side of the family] was Dutch, and they were connected more to Vogel Center and the Falmouth area. My dad’s father was Sherman Blackledge, and he lived right there on Pickard Street in Marion. The Blackledge side had a real strong connection to Marion.
MP: What kept you busy growing up?
Dan: Farming. We had one or two tractors, depending. My dad [Virgil] also owned the Marion Livestock Auction – him and his brother and his dad, the three of them owned it. They were always buying and selling livestock. In the fall, they’d always be backing up to the farm with a load of feeder lambs, and we’d feed those out. We’d usually have 400 to 500 lambs there in the feed lot. On the cattle side, it was similar. If he could find a good deal on some cattle, he’d buy them and bring them out and dump them out there. So we had to do all the “stuff”: grow the crops, have the pasture, put up the hay, put up the silage… with 45-50 horsepower tractors. It was a totally different kind of farming. I had three sisters; there were four of us.
MP: Did you go to country school as a kid?
Dan: Country school for 8 years. Grandon School, right down the road. There were two rooms really – it was K-4, and 5-8 – and Mrs. Richardson was our teacher for the lower grades. She would teach one grade, and we’d go up front and sit in a circle. When that was done, the next grade would come on up and she’d teach them. It was just that model: you’d go through arithmetic, and you’d go through spelling, you’d go through reading… At 9th grade, I went to Marion.
MP: What were some of your favorite memories from going to school in Marion?
Dan: The other kids in the class; all your friends. Most of the teachers, I really liked – I got along really well with them. I wasn’t what you’d call the best student in the class, but I got good enough grades to get into college.
MP: And how about you, Bonnie? Where were you born and raised?
Bonnie: I was born in Grand Rapids, and lived most of my life in the Rockford area – went to Rockford High School. Graduated in ’72.
MP: Rockford has changed a bit since the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Bonnie: Quite a bit. It was considered a rural community when I went to school there. People used to joke with us that people would “ride their horses to school”. Well, it wasn’t that bad – nobody ever did – but it was more of a rural community than it is today.
MP: What kept you busy as a kid?
Bonnie: Boys! Just being a typical teenager: school, friends. I had a little job at Mr. Fables – which was a burger restaurant – for a couple of years in high school.
MP: So how did you make your way up to Marion?
Bonnie: Well the ironic thing is… My dad came from the Brink [family] line, which is up near Vogel Center. So that’s where my grandfather grew up, and my grandmother grew up in Lake City. So my ancestors actually came from the area, which is sort of ironic.
Dan and I met in 2005, and I was working in Rockford. We were married in 2006, here on the farm. Between the two of us we have 7 kids.
MP: Where did life take you both after high school?
Dan: I went to college, and got a bachelor’s degree and a masters degree, and then I taught high school [in Kansas] for two years. Probably the best two years of my life, in hindsight – I really enjoyed those kids. Then I spent three years teaching in a community college. Then I went to Michigan State University, and spent 8 years with the extension service. So I was in education for a good portion of my life.
Then I got the bug. I just needed to prove myself. Education is great, but I quit and went out and started a business. I went through a couple of businesses before I finally found one that I really had success with. That was a company that I founded called Blue Granite, in Kalamazoo, and we were a software company. We started out developing software for websites back in the ‘90s, and then migrated to a number of pure Microsoft applications for businesses, whether they were web-based or not. Once you get a team put together of developers, you can develop software for a variety of sources, and that’s what we did. I was there until I sold that business in 2006.
MP: How about you, Bonnie? Where’d life take you after high school?
Bonnie: I went to Grand Valley. At that time, it was a college and not a university, and I got a teaching degree. Taught for three and a half years, and then I had my first baby. So I decided to stay and be a stay-at-home mom, and I had three kids within three and a half years. When [the kids] got old enough to go to school, I went back and I worked as a substitute teacher for four years.
I got kind of active politically, over issues of water quality. And someone called me and asked me if I’d run for township clerk, in Cannon Township. I had no idea what a township clerk even was, but I investigated it and found out it was supposedly a part-time job. I figured I would make as much money doing that as I would as a substitute. So I ran for office, and won. That was in 1992, and I was clerk for 24 years. And I loved it.
MP: What were your first impression of Marion, and the community in general?
Bonnie: I loved it from the very start. And our kids are like that – they love coming up here. They love the farm experience; they love the community. Some of them wish there were more stores to shop at, but it’s such a peaceful place.
Dan: As a kid, the thing I disliked most about farming was picking stones; getting the tractor and wagon and throwing rocks on there. So the first time Bonnie came up here, I had a little test for her. The first time Bonnie came up here, we hooked on the tractor and wagon and went out to the field, right over there in by those woods and picked stones. The irony is that she loved it. The only thing was that every stone was beautiful! Every stone, she had to look and it and decide whether she wanted to keep it!
MP: The real question is do you still enjoy picking stones?
Bonnie: Yes!
Dan: We plant about 60 to 80 acres of wheat each year, and we have Bonnie the stone picker!
MP: So what all keeps the Blackledge family busy these days?
Dan: I’m a farmer. I farm – I almost consider it a hobby now instead of a vocation – but I farm. And then this fall, we put up solar panels and a battery. So I’ve been pretty preoccupied with that for the last couple of months. We’re just now starting to look at how much electricity our solar panels are producing. And I like woodworking in the winter. I’ve got my shop set up out here, and I build “stuff”, like these cabinets, and this table.
Bonnie: He pretty much built this whole kitchen!
MP: And we know you are both passionate about the Marion Library. Tell us about that.
Dan: The library is our passion right now. As a kid, every single week, my mom took us kids to the Marion Library when it was there in the [Chapin] house. I love to read, but Bonnie is a totally avid reader.
Bonnie: We both are avid readers. Dan usually has three books going at the same time.
Dan: We went to a library board meeting, and we were honestly alarmed at the prospect of the library running out of money – using the trust funds and so on to operate… We came back and said, “What can we do to help?” So we talked about it, and it seemed like, to us, the only viable way to [keep] the library and get funding from the communities that also use the library – outside of getting donations every year – is to have a district library.
MP: Tell us about that. What is the current status of the library?
Dan: The status of the current [village] library is that it’s underfunded, and it needs a solid funding source if it’s going to continue; if there’s going to be a library. Otherwise, we see the library going away and it will be replaced with a kiosk or something. Right now, the village supports the library [along] with a small amount of state grants and penal fines.
MP: Together, you’re co-chairs of the Marion District Library Committee. Why are you so passionate about our library?
Bonnie: I have a real strong faith. And sometimes I just feel like God is calling me. I was sitting here, and I do some journaling every morning, and read a bible verse. And we had just been to the library meeting the night before. I just had this real strong feeling that we need to do this; we need to get involved; we need to even donate some money. And Dan was in [the other room], and I was out here, and when I was done, I walked in there and I said, “Dan, I just feel really strongly that we should do this.” And he looked at me, and said, “Oh my gosh, I was just thinking the exact same thing.” Now, the way I feel, that’s God saying that’s the direction I want you to go in. And I feel, since we started going in this direction, we have been so blessed. We’ve met so many wonderful people that I never knew before. Everybody we’ve met is just passionate about this library, and they’re so much fun to work with. It’s so amazing. I’m just really happy to feel a part of the community.