• The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department will hold its annual awards ceremony April 28 at 6 p.m. at the Firefighters Hall on Stockton Street.
• Attorneys Michael McGrath and Brad Gibson have moved into renovated space at 109 E. Bay St. The two-man firm handles personal injury and workers compensation claims.
• Radio talk show host Andy Johnson has invited City Council members to call his show and discuss the traffic situation created by the 90-day closure of the eastbound lanes on the Mathews Bridge. Johnson is an advocate of making the two open lanes westbound in the morning and eastbound in the afternoon.
• Register now for the Jacksonville Fire & Police River Rally Poker Run. The event where boaters navigate through a 150 mile charted course on the St. Johns River and pick up playing cards at certain areas for a chance to win prizes, is June 7-10. Proceeds benefit the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Foundation. Register at www.jaxriverrallypokerrun.com.
• The International Library of Poetry will award about $100,000 in prizes this year in the International Open Poetry Contest. Poets from Jacksonville are welcome to try and win their share of over 250 prizes. The deadline is June 30 and it is free and open to everyone. For more information or to enter a poem visit www.poetry.com.
• The Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville is hosting its 31st Annual Arts Awards Luncheon, “The Artist as Community Visionary,” on Tuesday from noon-1:30 p.m. on the Moran Theater’s stage inside the T-U Center. Award winners will be honored and Charles Landry, best-selling author and speaker is this year’s keynote speaker.
• Congratulations to Jeanette Toohey, the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens chief curator, who received the 2007 Excellence in Peer Service Award from the American Association of Museums. The award will be presented May 13-17 at the Annual Meeting & Museum Expo in Chicago.
• A bomb threat was phoned in to the law offices of Farah & Farah Thursday morning. The building was evacuated for about an hour.
• In just three hours Wednesday, workers and visitors to the BellSouth Tower raised $3,460.46 for the Jacksonville Humane Society.
• This year’s Relay for Life to benefit the American Cancer Society will be held from 5 p.m. April 20 until 11 a.m. April 21 at Dupont Middle School. For more information, call 398-0537.
• Slacker’s Museum, an ice cream parlor and museum that was opened in Murray Hill last year by 19-year-old Joy Lee, has been sold to new owners and is scheduled to expand into an adjacent office space on Edgewood Avenue. Lee says although the name will stay the same, the dessert and coffee menu will be bulked up, along with the galley’s art.
“There is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
– Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932), British essayist