• It’s a big week for Eugene Weekly. First, on May 27, former office manager Elisha Young was sentenced to 36 months on five felony counts for the money she stole from the paper. She is now going to prison. We are asking for restitution and finally feeling some closure. Read the details online at EugeneWeekly.com, in The Register-Guard or on KLCC.org. Then, on May 30, we celebrate Eugene Weekly Day to say thank you to all you folks who supported us through the devastating embezzlement and today! There is a silent auction of everything from a kid’s bike to gift baskets and gift cards for local businesses, a raffle to appear on the cover of EW, and live music by Blessed Relief Jazz Trio, Gerry Rempel Trio and Vinny White & The Heartbreakers!
• It’s time for the City Club of Eugene’s Turtle Awards! The award recognizes community members who stick their necks out (and are often underappreciated). Come meet the new Turtles at noon, May 29, at the WOW Hall. They are: volunteer medical folks Black Thistle Street Aid, attorney and 4J school board member, Jenny Jonak, U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane and State Board of Education chair Jennifer Scurlock.
• Remember that time last summer EW Editor Camilla Mortensen won an award as driver on a 24 hours of Lemons race team? (If not, check out the July 17, 2025, story at EugeneWeekly.com, just search for “lemons.”) The team won for basically having the worst car that did the most laps. It’s too late to enter, but not too late to check out the finishers in the “Oregon Fail” Lemons rally that started Monday, May 25, in Independence, Missouri, and ends Friday, May 29, in Oregon City. Check out 24HoursofLemons.com for how to race a $500 car with a crazy theme.
• Congrats to Ashely Hatcher, aka “Showtime” who plays on the Black Derby Collective, a Women’s Flat Track Derby Association team! WFTDA regional playoffs were last weekend and the Black Derby took gold and are heading to global championships in Sweden. Showtime is also a local Lane County Concussion roller derby player and coach of the Emerald City Junior Roller Derby team.
• Kudos to Bill Rauch, former artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He led OSF for more than 10 years before leaving in 2019 to become founding artistic director of New York’s $560 million Perelman Performing Arts Center, which opened in 2023 next to Ground Zero. At OSF, Rauch commissioned and directed a new play by Robert Schenkkan, All the Way, that went on to Broadway and took the Tony Award for Best Play in 2014. Now he’s back in the limelight directing a revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats, renamed Cats: The Jellicle Ball and set in the world of queer ballroom dancing competitions, complete with RuPaul’s Drag Race schtick. First staged at PAC NYC, as the center is known, the show opened on Broadway in April, packing houses, drawing rave reviews and receiving nine Tony nominations. The awards are to be announced June 7.
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