Biz Beat 3-24-2016

• The Jazz Station at 124 W. Broadway has a jazzy new neon marquee that makes the all-ages music venue easier to find downtown. The sign was built by Neal Conner of Neon Latitudes with funding by a Lane County Cultural Coalition grant with matching funds from the nonprofit Willamette Jazz Society. Rich and Marilyn Linton, the current WJS president and his spouse, contributed financially to the project as well as providing oversight. The Jazz Station, a project of WJS, promotes touring musicians and bands, local talent and youth performers and provides rehearsal space. The venue also has a rotating art gallery. See thejazzstation.org for upcoming shows and opportunities to volunteer.

• Eugene native Mowgli Holmes is featured in a March 14 Newsweek magazine story by former R-G reporter Winston Ross called “The Man Mapping the Marijuana Genome is Changing the Weed Game.” Holmes, 43, is a geneticist with a Ph.D. from Columbia University and is currently the chief scientific officer of Phylos Bioscience in Portland. The lab, housed by Oregon Health and Science University, does research on marijuana DNA (not the pot itself) and is working to map the cannabis genome. Find the story online by searching newsweek.com for “marijuana genome.”

• Reality Kitchen on River Road has partnered with the Association of Fundraising Professionals at UO on a project to raise money for a proposed $6,000 expansion of the nonprofit’s retail space. Reality Kitchen operates a bakery and café and provides job skills and other services to adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. A video can be found at realitykitchen.causevox.com. About $1,800 has been raised so far. See Activist Alert this week for an event at Reality Kitchen March 25.

• Fly-fishing businesses and experts from around the region are gathering at the International Fly Fishing Film Festival beginning around 7 pm Thursday, March 31, at the Wildish Theater in Springfield. Tickets in advance are available at Caddis Fly Angling Shop and Home Waters Fly Fishing in Eugene. True West Custom Fly Rods and Plank Town Brewing are among the sponsors. Ten award-winning, professional fly-fishing films will be shown and an auction will be held starting about 6:15 pm to support Fly Fishing Collaborative, a nonprofit that builds tilapia farms in poor villages around the globe. About 200 people showed up for the festival last year, says Tony Overstake of True West.

A Note From the Publisher

Dear Readers,

The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.

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