Austin 360
Zach Theatre on Wednesday canceled the remaining dates of A Rockin Holiday Concert after local health officials moved Austin into Stage 5 pandemic guidelines.
Leaders of the theater company announced that performances planned for Dec. 23 through Jan. 3 will no longer take place as planned. Zach Theatre had staged the buoyant concerts in its People s Plaza with audience members sitting or standing and dancing in socially distanced zones.
The theater is contacting individual ticket holders, who have the following options:
• Apply the value of the ticket as a tax-deductible donation to the organization, which will be used to support Zach artists and employees affected by these cancellations.
Pastor Mark Hilbelink leads a group of 40 churches trying to help the homeless.
Food, water and coffee are just a few of the many services offered at Sunrise Community Church.
One day five years ago, they showed up.
Mark Hilbelink, the pastor at the small Sunrise Community Church near Ben White Boulevard and Menchaca Road, noticed that among his flock that Sunday were worshipers who he knew were experiencing homelessness.
“We didn’t plan on it,” says Hilbelink, 37, originally from small-town South Dakota and Iowa. “They just came.”
Already, Hilbelink had realized that the church, founded as part of the Christian Reformed movement, could do what many churches based on biblical principles wanted to do: follow in the footsteps of Jesus and help those who need help the most.
Austin 360
The Dan Rather Medals for News and Guts will go out to collegiate and professional journalists who overcome obstacles like stonewalling and harassment to speak truth to power, according to a statement from UT s Moody College of Communication and the School of Journalism and Media.
The annual awards will honor relentless reporting as well as exceptional content including text, audio, broadcast or graphics, the statement continues.
Each winner will receive $5,000. “It has never been more important to encourage courage,” Rather said when the awards were announced. “The hope is that these medals will help lift up journalists who risk it all to tell tough truths.”
Sometimes it feels like Austin has already lost its core character permanently.
No doubt, our material environment is changing every day, as we add more people, buildings and cars to a place that will likely soon join the list of top 10 largest cities in the country. And while Austin has preserved a lot of green space, the new high-rises and mid-rises, some of them legitimate eyesores, blot out our visual horizons, especially if one is on foot.
Several groups in town are dedicated to judiciously preserving our built heritage, none more ardently than Preservation Austin. Accelerated during the first wave of protests against the wholesale demolition of worthy older structures in the 1970s, it has done a lot with few resources and a tiny, though effective, staff.
Don’t bother dreaming of a white Christmas in Austin.
Although a bit more of the fluffy white stuff falls regularly on the Hill Country, the city usually receives only a dusting, and then just every so often. Most of the time, it’s gone by noon, when it’s time to break out the short sleeves and margaritas.
The biggest Austin snowfall of the past decade occurred in 2011, when we got almost an inch during a bad drought.
Way back on Jan. 30, 1949, however, a whole 6.5 inches blanketed the city. You can bet that everyone with a camera back then tromped outdoors to record the marvel.