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Republican State Highway Commissioner, 1943-1957. Correspondence, scrapbooks and other papers concerning the highway department, Republican politics, and his interest in the Michigan Republican League, the Michigan Indian Foundation, and the construction of the Mackinac Bridge; also photographs.

The collections includes the following series of papers: Correspondence; Campaign and Republican Party Activities; Michigan Highway Department; Topical files and miscellaneous; and Scrapbooks and clippings. Much of the correspondence relates to his first campaign in 1943 for Highway Commissioner.

Civil engineer, served as Michigan state highway commissioner, chairman of the Mackinac Straits Bridge Authority and president of Portland Cement Company. Papers primarily document work with highway commission and Mackinac Straits Bridge Authority.

The papers, 1928-1968, of G. Donald Kennedy document his career in civil engineering, his participation in professional organizations, his activities as a state official, and as a supporter of the Michigan Democratic Party. The collection Includes correspondence, speeches, minutes, reports, articles, clippings, and photographs. The files relate to his work as municipal engineer in Pontiac, Michigan, with the Mackinac Straits Bridge Authority, the American Association of State Highway Officials, the Automotive Safety Foundation, and the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority. The collection also includes papers relating to highway and airport construction, to economic mobilization during World War II, the Willow Run Bomber Plant, state Democratic Party matters, particularly the campaign visits of President Roosevelt to Michigan in 1936.

The collection contains copies of exhibits that Planisek created on a wide variety of subjects that are related to local history including: shipwrecks, lighthouses, Mackinaw City history, and Emmet County history. The bulk of the Boxes 1-4 is information gathered on the Enbridge Energy line 5, which carries oil under the Straits of Mackinac. The 2020 Addition, Acc#76337, Boxes 4-11 and Oversized folders #2-3, focuses on the work by Sandy Planisek and Dick Moehl planning, creating, and running the Icebreaker Mackinaw Maritime Museum on the decommissioned United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Mackinaw (WLGB-83), moored in Mackinaw City.

The collection, 1998, 2017, and undated contains copies of exhibits that Planisek created between 1998 and 2017. These displays cover a wide variety of subjects that are related to local history including: shipwrecks, lighthouses, Mackinaw City history, and Emmet County history. The bulk of the collection is information gathered on the Enbridge Energy line 5, which carries oil under the Straits of Mackinac. Planisek was decidedly anti-Enbridge. Contents of this collection included newspaper clippings, photographs, online articles, letters and pamphlets. A folder of biographical materials is also included. A later addition includes oral histories (on CDs), 2017: a recorded presentation by Bob Sweeney, Executive Secretary of the Mackinac Bridge Authority about the Mackinac Bridge; Jim Tamlyn about the A-frame used to un/load the Chief Wawatam railroad cars in Mackinaw City, and a CD of related images; and a joint interview about how the Michigan State House really used to work, with Patricia “Pan” Godchaux, who served 1997-2002, and Pan’s campaign manager, Susie Stafford. The collection is organized alphabetically and chronologically in the order in which it came to the Clarke.

The 2020 Addition, Acc#76337, Boxes 4-11 and Oversized folders #2-3, focuses on the work by Sandy Planisek and Dick Moehl planning, creating, and running the Icebreaker Mackinaw Maritime Museum on the decommissioned United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Mackinaw (WLGB-83), moored in Mackinaw City. The ship was decommissioned in 2006. There are also materials related to the later working years of the WLGB-83 before it was decommissioned, and the new USCGC Mackinaw (WLBB-30). On the back of many of the photographs in the collection, the names and ranks of the ship’s crew are listed. Audiovisual materials including microcassette, Hi8, MiniDV, VHS, DVDs, CDs, and photographs are found throughout the addition. Oversized materials include a signed pennant and proposed master site plans. The addition is also organized alphabetically and chronologically. All boxes in the Addition are .5 cubic foot boxes.

Researchers may be interested in related collections by Richard L. “Dick” Moehl, the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, and those related to Mackinaw area history which are also in the Clarke Historical Library.

Most of the text collection was originally received on four CDs. For the convenience of researchers, we printed off all the contents of the CDs and organized the papers. For reference to the CDs, each document has been labeled in the upper right-hand corner with a number that corresponds to the disc from which it came, in order to keep some resemblance of the original order of the collection. The original CDs are filed under miscellaneous materials in the Enbridge collection. In the 2020 Addition, six items were separately cataloged and 3 cubic feet was returned to the donor as per the donor agreement.