Gary P. Custer

Founder

Gary P. Custer was the founder, publisher and editor of East Village Magazine for 39 years from 1976 to his death in January, 2015.  Living much of his life in Flint, Gary attended old Walker Elementary, Whittier Middle School and graduated from Flint Central High School in 1960. A photojournalism graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, he served in the U.S. Navy from February,1968 to May. 1971.  He was stationed off Vietnam and in Japan.

East Village Magazine was Gary’s life passion.  For decades, from his small unmarked office on Second Street in Flint, he produced a quality neighborhood publication with an all volunteer staff. He mentored and taught journalism practices to dozens, if not hundreds, of young reporters over the years.

His photojournalism degree was immensely important and formative to him.  His aesthetic was elegant and artistic, and he highly valued (and ceaselessly critiqued) the black and white photographs provided from the beginning by his brother, Edwin D. Custer.

He also believed in the power of good writing and great neighborhood stories.  Although his writers were never paid, he had a way of extracting the best from them and insisted on superior quality and high ethical standards.

He asked little and gave much to our community. His ashes were placed at the Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly, but we believe that his heart and spirit are still in that office on Second Street and in the hearts of the people of Flint to whom he devoted his singular and inimitable work.

Kate Stockrahm

Managing Editor

Kate Stockrahm was born in Detroit, graduated from the University of Michigan, and moved to Flint after a decade on the east coast (where she worked in event planning, got her forklift certification, and eventually obtained a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University). Kate came to the Vehicle City by way of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Since moving to Flint in 2021, Kate has won multiple Michigan Press Association awards for her journalism and was recently named as one of Genesee County’s 40 Under 40 by the Flint & Genesee Group. She currently lives in a downtown apartment building with her partner and their cat, Baci.

Nicholas Custer

Business Manager

Nic Custer has served as Business Manager since 2023 and previously served as a writer and editor for East Village Magazine between 2004 and 2017.

A Flint native, Custer holds two master’s degrees in business and has contributed to eight verbatim and site-specific plays, released two poetry books, and was awarded a Poetry Foundation/Crescendo Literary Emerging Writer fellowship in 2016.

Jan Worth-Nelson

Consulting Writer

Jan Worth was editor of East Village Magazine with able assistance from her husband Ted,  from 2015 to the end of 2020, when she handed the reins to the next generation. She continues as a contributing writer.

Worth started writing the back-page “Village Life” column of EVM in 2007. Her 15 years of columns have been collected in book form in That’s My Moon Over Court Street: Dispatches from a Life in Flint. A native Ohioan with a journalism degree from Kent State University, she worked as a newspaper reporter in Southern California for five years before joining the U.S. Peace Corps. On returning from that assignment in the Kingdom of Tonga, she obtained a master’s of social work from the University of Michigan and came to Flint in 1981 for a job as a social worker. During her seven years in that position, she returned to writing, obtaining a master of fine arts in creative writing from Warren Wilson College. She moved to the University of Michigan – Flint, where she taught writing for 25 years before retiring in 2014. Her stories, essays, and poems have appeared in many magazines – including Belt Magazine, Dunes Review, The MacGuffin, and Happy Anyway: A Flint Anthology. Her 2006 novel, Night Blind, was a fictionalized account of her Peace Corps years. A poetry collection, Elegies from the Last Days of the Empire, is due out in January from Kelsay Books. She lives in an old house on a tree-lined street in Flint with her husband Ted.

Ted Nelson

Consulting Editor

Ted tends to EVM‘s infrastructure and consults on many editorial issues.  He also does the magazine’s layout and cheers up the editor.  Ted is a graduate of Amherst College and a former Peace Corps volunteer (Turkey) and Washington staff member.  He was also the founder and CEO of the Education for Involvement Corporation, a nonprofit District of Columbia think tank and training organization.  In addition to his EVM work, Ted is the CEO of Hollywood Awards.  He is featured in a 2018 documentary from Northern Light Productions titled “JFK:  The Last Speech” about his experience meeting JFK at Amherst in 1963 and the effects of that experience on his life.  Ted’s work with East Village Magazine is part of his present-day life captured in the film.  Also, he is co-producer, with wife Jan Worth-Nelson, of a 2020 “get 0ut the vote” video for East Village Magazine called Faces of Flint:  A Message from the Anvil of Democracy.

Edwin D. Custer

Photographer, Distribution Manager, vice-president  of the board

As the artist and photographer behind our famously gorgeous cover photos, as former president of the board of the Village Information Center, and as brother of EVM founder Gary Custer, Ed plays a crucial role in keeping the legacy of EVM alive.  A graduate of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor with BFA, MA and MLA, degrees, he was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi scholastic honorary.   He is a Vietnam veteran awarded the Air Medal and the Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster. A six-decade long resident of Flint, he is a retired city planning supervisor.  He is a gifted ceramist, photographer, landscape painter and sculptor.

Paul Rozycki

Political columnist, president of the board

Paul Rozycki came to teaching somewhat accidentally. He planned a career as a journalist, having worked for a daily newspaper in Illinois.  After earning degrees at Northern Illinois University, and Indiana University, he taught political science at Ball State University for two years before coming to Mott Community College in 1969, and retired in 2011.

He has been the “Political Pundit” for area TV stations, is a regular guest on the Tom Sumner radio program, and often moderates candidate panels in the community.

He is a member of the EVM board and is currently serving as board president.

He has also written several books– “Politics and Government in Michigan” (with Jim Hanley) and “A Clearer Image: The 75 year history of Mott Community College”.  He has written a chapter on the Flint water crisis for a text on Michigan government.

Among his outside interests are photography and collecting political memorabilia.  In April, 2018, Paul received the Liberty Bell Award from the Genesee County Bar Association, based in large measure on his writing for EVM.

Contributing writers 

Harold C. Ford

EVM Writer Harold C. Ford wrote for the Flint Voice and the Michigan Voice many years ago. He is retired from 43 years as an educator in the Beecher Community Schools, where he was the co-founder and first executive director of the Beecher Scholarship Incentive Program funded by the Ruth Mott Foundation. His return to investigative journalism is part of his stated “bucket list.”

He has become the much-read Education Beat writer for EVM, drawing on his decades as an educator;  also, he has contributed many book reviews to the magazine.  He can be reached at hcford1185@gmail.com.

Patsy Isenberg

“This Month in the Village” editor

Patsy Isenberg has worked in publishing most of her career, but as a graphic designer. Always torn between art and writing, she has a degree in English from U of M-Flint and a minor in art. Long after raising her son and daughter in Lapeer, she moved to Flint where she now lives with her two cats, Allie and Scout. She started a novel with an autobiographical theme she hopes to finish soon. Meanwhile. she writes long carefully-crafted emails, posts, letters, short stories, rants and an occasional poem. So she’s extremely happy to have joined the staff of East Village Magazine.

Madeleine Graham

Madeleine Graham grew up from age two to twelve at St. Vincent Sarah Fisher Home for Children (now closed) in Farmington Hills, Michigan.  She writes, “Thankfully despite some hard times, I was raised by the Daughters of Charity, a Catholic Order of Nuns.  The nuns reunited me with my folks when I was considered old enough to take care of myself. “

She further comments, “Writing is the sustenance to my existence. I fell into a love of writing when I was quite young.  I love writing and am passionate about poetry.  I have worked as a reporter/writer since 1988.  I also served as a substitute teacher and teacher assistant. My previous writing experience is primarily in newspapers.”

She is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University where she earned a B.S. in English, language and literature;  and Oakland Community College where she earned an Associate’s in Business Administration .  She says, “I was blessed with a son and a daughter who are adults.  Life has been turbulent, but thankfully I have been given the fortitude to press on.” Quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, she asserts, “Patience and fortitude conquer all things.”

Teddy Robertson

Columnist

Teddy Robertson was raised in Mill Valley, California, back when Marin County was a collection of small towns scattered over hillsides just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.  She lived in Poland over four years and returned to complete a doctorate at Indiana University.  Arriving in Flint in 1984, her early experience was shaped by the promise and collapse of Buick City. She has resided in Flint’s neighborhoods—the north end, Glendale Hills, Mott Park. She retired from UM-Flint as Associate Professor in History.  She can be reached at teddyrob@umflint.edu.

Christina Collie

Reporter

Christina says she is best described as a “jack of all trades, master of none.” In addition to photography and painting, she has been an avid reader since elementary school, and an avid writer ever since winning a Michigan Young Author Award for a short story she wrote in 4th grade.

An alumna of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Christina graduated with a degree in Graphic Communication and a focus on art direction. She is the artist behind Picture Detroit and Flint via Detroit. She currently sells her photography and gifts, which include postcards and magnets of Detroit and Flint, at Shops on Saginaw in Flint.

Having traveled the world and lived overseas for a time, Christina now lives in Flint with her foster-fail fur-baby, Bella. She enjoys traveling; hanging out with friends; working on her house, SARAH; live performances of all kinds; sharing a good meal; and writing for East Village Magazine. You can reach out to Collie via her website: www.picturedetroit.org.

Canisha Norris

Reporter

Canisha Norris is a proud product of Flint Community Schools, graduating from Flint Southwestern Academy and continuing her education at the University of Michigan–Flint, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Health Education. Passionate about community engagement, Canisha thrives on reporting local happenings with the goal of connecting all corners of Flint—beyond the traditional boundaries of East Village, the Cultural Center, and Central Park. 

A dedicated advocate for health and wellness, Canisha is a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT), RYT 500 yoga instructor, and Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES). Her work is driven by a deep commitment to promoting holistic well-being and uplifting her community through education, movement, and meaningful connection.

Coner Segren

Columnist

Born in Flint, Coner Segren holds an Associates in Liberal Arts from Mott Community College and is attending UM-Flint.

Robert R. Thomas

Columnist, reviewer

Bob Thomas was made in Flint during WWII. He disappeared in San Francisco thirty-five years ago, only to reappear a decade ago as a retired resident of Central Park village where he found true love, a new home and East Village Magazine.

Daniel Vela

Reporter

Daniel Vela was born and raised in Flint, and is a graduate from Flint Central High School. Vela is a Marine veteran and when not in his recliner or playing disc golf, he enjoys standup comedy, movies, and comic book heroes. He is currently raising his two teenage sons and his German Shepard. (Almost all of them are house-broken.)

Nathan Waters

Reporter

Nathan Waters was born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula before moving to Flint to pursue a degree from Kettering University. After bouncing around Metro Detroit for work, he and his partner have settled full time in Flint.

Dean Paxton

Website Support

Dean has been involved with technology since 1980. He assisted Gary Custer with the first iterations of the East Village Magazine’s web presence in the late 90’s. Today, Dean helps publish The East Village Magazine’s online edition.  Dean was a resident of Flint for more than 45 years, recently moving to Owosso, MI

Grayce Scholt – 1925-2018 

Our Late Poet

A retired English professor from Mott Community College, former art reviewer for the Flint Journal and longtime resident of the College Cultural neighborhood, poet and memoirist, we are sorry to say  Grayce Scholt died March, 2018.  This was what she wrote when she last offered a bio.

“I’ve been writing poems for as long as I can remember–and at age 90 that is a very long time. So it goes without saying, many of my poems are nostalgic, recalling pertinent moments in my life. But my love of all natural things–animals, especially–account for much of my work, which often verges on the spiritual. My life-long interest in creating art has produced ceramics, in particular, but other media as well. I am grateful for whatever creative gifts I might have, and to East Village Magazine for the opportunity to share them with others.”   We miss her greatly.