It wasn’t all bad
■ After 25 years of silence, the Beaubien Bell at the Basilica of Sainte Anne de Detroit is ringing again as part of a $30 million restoration project. The bell, a gift from Antoine Beaubien in 1848, stopped calling parishioners in 1998 because its casing had rotted. This week, thousands of people visited the 322-year-old parish, the secondoldest Roman Catholic parish in the U.S. in continuous operation, to hear once again the Beaubien Bell’s chime. “We spent so much time here visiting her and you could hear the bells and it brings back a lot of fond memories,” said parishioner Marylou Adamcik.
■ In December 2016, 11-year-old Reed Marcum discovered that the family of one of his classmates in McAlester, Okla., was struggling financially and couldn’t afford Christmas presents. He approached Angie Miller, his mother, asking her to do a toy giveaway, and after posting a video on Facebook, they gave out about 1,000 toys. Seven years and more than 54,000 toys later, his 4-H Toy Giveaway counts some 200 volunteers handling more than 10,000 gifts donated to Oklahoma children. Now a freshman at Oklahoma State, Reed still coordinates the toy drive, greeting families when they make it to the front of the line. “It’s remarkable that Reed does this every year—he has a big heart and a definite drive to improve the community,” said John Browne, mayor of McAlester.
■ In November, Peter Park, now a 17-year-old attorney, became the youngest person in California’s state history to pass the bar exam. When he was 13, his father asked him if he wanted to become an attorney, and the month after, Park began studying for the College Level Examination Program tests, which allowed him to apply to law school after finishing eighth grade. While in high school, Park—inspired by Abraham Lincoln, a famous autodidact—enrolled in a four-year online juris doctor program at Northwestern California University School of Law. “The law is like the fabric of society, it reaches into everyone’s lives,” Park said.