Top of the Class • 2025 Saginaw County Hall of Fame Nominees

For over 60 years the Saginaw County Hall of Fame has inducted over 150 individuals for accomplishments that have done much to impact the Saginaw community and shape the contours of the city’s and our region’s cultural environment.

Every year nominations are accepted from the community using a form on the organization’s website at saginawcountyhalloffame.org, which also contains biographies from prior inductees. According to Hall of Fame president Thomas Mudd, “It is exciting each year to receive nominations of so many qualified men and women who, each is his or her own way, made Saginaw proud. It does, however, make choosing just a few very difficult. The results of this year’s balloting were reviewed by the Board of Directors at their September meeting and we are pleased to announce the following 2025 Inductees”.

These following outstanding individuals will be honored at the Saginaw County Hall of Fame Induction Dinner, which will be held on Tuesday, October 21st at The Saginaw Club on the second floor, beginning with a Cash Bar at 5:30 PM, Dinner at 6:00 PM, and the induction program starting at 7:00 PM. If you would like to attend this Induction Dinner tribute please send a check for $50.00 per person payable to Saginaw County Hall of Fame to Irene Hensinger, 320 Ardussi Ave., Saginaw, Mi, 48602.

Glenn M. (Red) Beach • 1916-1999

Part of the prominent Mid-Century Modern era, Glenn Beach lived in Saginaw and Frankenmuth, was born in New York state, and moved to Saginaw in1948. After serving in World War II he worked briefly in the architectural offices of Frantz & Spence in Saginaw and Alden B. Dow in Midland before opening his own firm in Saginaw.

Among a few of his designs the most notable include: Saginaw Children’s Zoo (and its popular Blue Whale), St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Saginaw Township, Bavarian Inn Restaurant (the owners sent him to Germany to research architecture), upwards of 10 homes in the Delta Woods area of Saginaw Twp., along with homes for well-known Saginaw names such as Bushey, Koucky, Draper, and Defoe locally, and 100 more throughout the state.

He also designed offices for local doctors (Gamon, Manning, Heavenrich), the Saginaw YMCA addition with its suspended track, Frankenmuth Library, Jesse Rouse Elementary School, IG in Frankenmuth and Timber Lanes bowling alley in Traverse City.

One of his biggest challenges was designing a home for a University of Michigan music professor in Ann Arbor that included a massive pipe organ.

His woodsy style is known for use of field stone and brick, numerous built planters outside and built in cabinets inside, large overhanging soffits, low sloping roofs, and built throughout like rock. Active with Saginaw Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (president), Elks & Rotary Clubs, he also acted and built sets with Pit & Balcony and served six years on race driver Martin Tanner’s crew and raced an Austin Healey 3000 in a Class C competition and was an active photographer of race cars.

He is quoted as saying: “Architecture is anything that has to do with man-made design for the environment in which mankind lives.”

John R. Burt • 1920-2003

John was born in 1920 near Sand Lake in Iosco Country, Michigan, the fourth of John & Fanny Burt’s five children. At the age of 13 John traveled to Michigan’s upper Peninsula to work as a ‘flunky’ in the lumber camps. After a series of manufacturing and construction jobs he ended up working for Frankenmuth’s Universal Engineering in 1941. It was then that he met his wife Mildred List.

John served in the army during WWII and after returning home worked a series of jobs, eventually starting Burt Construction in 1952. In 1959 after a series of unfortunate events, John lost everything. He lost his small company and he, his wife, and five children even lost their house.

Undeterred, John helped to start Bridgeport Pools in the mid 1960s. After getting stuck with. Bad batch of swimming pool liners, John decided the only way he could control quality was to manufacture the liners himself. In the mid 1970’s John started Tri-City Vinyl in Saginaw. During that time, the roof at Tri-City Vinyl needed a new roof, so John figured that if a pool liner could keep water in it could also keep water out.

From that idea, Duro-Last Roofing was born. Incorporated in 1981 and headquartered in Buena Vista, Duro-Last went on to become the industry leader in custom fabricated commercial roofing. Since its founding, the foundation has donated almost $3 million dollars to support Christian education in the Saginaw area.

John Burt died on April 11, 2003, survived by his wife Mildred, children Carol Stuhr, Sharon Sny, Connie Moeller, Kathy Burt Allen, and John C. Burt, along with his long-time business partner and advisor Tom Lawler.   The John R. Burt Enterprise family of companies grew to include facilities in seven states with 800 employees.

In March 2023, those companies were acquired for over $1.3 billion dollars.

Jim Fives • 1952-2018

Jim Fives was an exceptionally gifted Saginaw artist with a fastidious eye for re-connecting the community to its historical legacy through his meticulously detailed craftsmanship as a sign painter, illustrator, calligrapher, and caricaturist.

He merged his artistic talent with his knowledge of regional history to create immaculate restorations of murals on the original Weinberg-Pankonin Pharmacy in Old Town Saginaw, The Fordney Hotel, Record Run on the Saginaw River, and Jacox Steering Gear, along with limericks for Spatz’s Bakery and Pasong’s Café.

His disciplined ‘old school’ techniques and iconoclastic eye for detail was also enlisted by Saginaw Valley State University to render the ‘Cardinal’ logo on their gym floors and pool. Jim handled special contract work for commercial entities such as Spence Brothers as well as the Salvation Army, and painted vehicles for Nickodemu Oil and Saginaw’s Yellow Cab service.

A member of the SCARAB Art Club, which dates back to the 1920s, Jim was also enlisted by the Detroit Athletic Club to paint the names of deceased members in golf leaf, along with Arthur Hill High School, where he painted the scoreboard along with a lumberjack on the inside of the field house press box. Additionally, he was. Regular participant in job fairs for Carrollton and Saginaw Public School.

Jim was also a gifted cartoonist, contributing many witty and satirical cartoons to REVIEW Magazine back in the 1980s. For six years he was a regularly featured artist in the annual Art Prize competition in Grand Rapids and was the 2017 recipient of an All Area Arts Award bestowed by the Saginaw Arts & Enrichment Commission.

Jim also painted two Rounding Boards for the Saginaw Carousel back in 1989, titled Sailing on the Saginaw Bay and The Flying Markel. The Saginaw Art Museum featured Jim’s work in an exhibition titled Fives Fast Track, which featured automotive paintings by the late Saginaw artist.

Jim and his wife Mary had two children. In his free time he loved reading and shopping at antique shops. At the time of his death he had just finished painting the mural at The Stable.

Frank W. Wolfarth • 1866-1934

Frank worked alongside his father, John G Wolfarth, operating and later taking over their local bakery when his father retired in the 1890s. Frank guided the bakery from being a local city bakery to a regional powerhouse of production. The expansion of the bakery in 1893 and again in 1912 make it the largest steam baker in the State of Michigan. Capacity was 10,000 loafs a day and Wolfarth’s delivered bread  to over 100 towns, villages, and cities throughout the Saginaw Valley and Saginaw River Watershed.

Frank was also heavily involved in civic associations such as the Germania and Teutonic Societies. He represented Saginaw by bringing distinction to his hometown serving on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Master Bakers in the first decade of the 20^th century. He annually rented a steamship and took all bakery employees and their families on a cruise and dinner picnic out into Lake Huron from the downtown Saginaw docks.

Wolfarth faced several monumental issues in assuming control and operation of the bakery upon his mother’s death (March Hachen)  in 1893 and his father’s diminishing capacity. He was juggling two major construction projects; the baker was undergoing an expansion in 1893, and he was also building his home, Wolfarth House, on the corner of Hoyt and S. Weadock Avenue. In addition, the country was going through an economic depression with the Panic of 1893, which lasted until 1897, and it deeply affected every sector of the U.S. economy.

Signs of this economic upheaval are evident in the construction of Wolfarth House, as many typical Victorian architectural details are missing or left out of the construction, such as areas where stained glass were intended but never purchased.

He was a lifelong member of St. Mary’s Cathedral and a strong supporter of the arts. He financially supported St. Vincent’s Orphanage Home.