Saturday night, May 2 at the Celtic Fox we hosted a benefit concert for The Jayhawk Theatre. Despite a few snags along the way to make this event happen, I am very pleased with the turn out. We raised $750, which all goes to The Jayhawk Theatre to aid in their renovation process. Though this amount is miniscule when compared to the amount of money that they need to complete their project, I feel that the awareness and interest generated by the event will do more for the future of The Jayhawk than the money that we raised.

Before the show started, the theater was opened for tours and was to end around 7 p.m. Kathy Duncan, president of the Jayhawk Theatre board wasn’t able to make it to the majority of the first band who played because of the amount of people taking the tours. It is estimated that more than 60 people took a tour of the theater last night, and more than 150 people came out to the show.

I want to thank everyone who made this event possible: Lance Johnson, Kathy Duncan and the rest of the volunteers and board members at The Jayhawk; Vern White for running sound; The Live Music Institute for setting us up with some equipment; X92.9 for giving us radio PSAs to help promote the event; Eagle Car Wash, Kansas Guitar, Cold Stone Ice Cream, Sun Resorts Tanning, Via’s Pizza, Miller Lite, The Super 8 Hotel at Forbes Landing and The Celtic Fox and 96.5 The Buzz for donating prizes; Trish Mark and the rest of the staff at The Celtic Fox for allowing us to hold this event there; Corey Jones for putting together an amazing video presentation; The guys from Left on Northwood, From Quiet Arms, Echo Lake, Define Beautiful and The Cherry Tree Parade for playing at the show and providing some amazing music; the staff from The Washburn Review and Kaw Yearbook who donated their time to help set up and run the event.

Thank you all so much, and I hope that what we have accomplished can be repeated in the future and continue to grow bigger and better as time goes on as a tool to aide in The Jayhawk’s fundraising efforts. For those of you who may have missed out on the event last night but are still interested in checking out The Jayhawk Theatre volunteers and board members would be delighted to give tours and speak with you about the future of the theater and what it can do for downtown Topeka.