• Starting with some good news: Eliza Aronson, former Eugene Weekly intern now environmental reporter for the Everett Herald, won the Society of Professional Journalists Region 10 Mark of Excellence Award for her coverage of roofie incidents at the University of Oregon. Region 10 covers Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, and Aronson won for in-depth coverage at a large (over 10,000 student) university.
• This week in controversial news we are following, there’s been some heated discussions at the Lane Community College board of Education meetings. We’re following along with LCC’s The Torch newspaper at LCCTorch.com and in the upcoming print issue. Full disclosure — The Torch hitches a ride with EW from the printers, and we are known to give the student journalists there advice. Torch Editor Kat Tabor has received a prestigious Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism internship this summer with Hood River’s Columbia Gorge News, and Eugene Weekly is excited to have University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication student Seira Kitagawa in our newsroom as a Snowden intern this summer!
• It’s a packed week for Eugene City Club — at noon, Friday, April 18, at WOW Hall, City Club will feature the two contested races for the Eugene 4J School Board. Position 2, Erica Thessen versus Danny McDiarmid, and Position 3, Judy Newman versus Donald Easton. The program will be moderated by KLCC’s Rebecca Hansen-White, and of course air at 7 pm Monday night on KLCC and be live streamed at Youtube.com/@CityClubofEugene. City Club also has two special evening forums on “Photographs from Around the World and Around Town.” Dan Morrison of the University of Oregon’s journalism school is 6:30 pm Monday, April 21, and The Register-Guard’s Chris Pietsch is 6:30 pm Monday, April 28, both at Marquis at 555 Country Club Road.
• On April 15, Planet versus Pentagon, a local group that works to educate, organize and mobilize people concerned with militarism and climate collapse, set up a Tax Day Penny Poll outside the Downtown Eugene Public Library. Planet v. Pentagon says they focus on the U.S. military as the greatest contributor to global collapse. Michael Carrigan and Sue Barnhart say, “The penny poll results were much different than the proposed Trump budget.” The Trump budget has 50 percent of taxes going to the military, 38 percent to Human Resources, 7 percent to the general government and 5 percent to physical resources. Eugeneans wanted 40 percent to go to human resources, 38 percent to climate and environment (which is not in Trump’s budget), 10.5 percent to the general government, 10.5 percent to physical resources and under 1 percent to the military.