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A full spread of fruit, cookies and cupcakes, coffee and tea helped take the edge off dinner-hour munchies at the SMART Open House in Healdsburg on March 23.

The vendors themselves seemed pretty darn happy with the pop-up Farmers Market experience, too. “I love this market; I love the community; I love everyone coming,” said olive-oil maker Russ Messing, who found himself on the front page of The Tribune last week. “It’s always smile time!”

“What’s impactful about these selections is that they are decided on by all of the peer head coaches in the girls league. Each girl is talked about; some advocated for stat by stat, others in a speech-like cadence. These girls selected are getting head nods from all these other coaches. It’s a special recognition.”

“There are usually some fun surprises for us in the line-up of our ‘Audience Favorites’ program,” said co-founder Pamela Demorest. “Some films resonate more with our audience than they did with our celebrity jury, and we always want our guests to feel like a vital part of the process.”

Famous and quirky chess players include: Jose Capablanca (1888-1942), a famous Cuban grandmaster who continuously smoked cigars while playing; Alexander Alakine (1892-1946), who brought and petted his cat named “Chess”; and Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) who had all of his dental fillings removed to escape radio transmissions.

The Healdsburg Museum is grateful for five decades of outstanding community support. We are celebrating our 50th anniversary all year with free special exhibitions and programming. With your support, we will continue to elevate local history for the next 50 years and beyond.

Friday: Opening night of a two-week run of the three-actor play T-Bone N Weasel by Jon Klein, featuring Aldo Billingslea. Set in the South Carolina of decades past, it will be staged Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at 7pm, Sunday matinees at 2pm at The 222.

Space for vendors has always been a concern for the Farmers’ Market organization and the vendors themselves. “I’ll confess to not being a fan of it initially,” Janet Ciel said. “I realized it would be challenging to put vendors up there (on the stage area), as they can’t drive a car onto it. Everything will have to go up via stairs or a ramp.” But as she’s become used to the space, she’s recognized its potential.

The school year’s first big invitational track meet took place last Saturday at Santa Rosa High. The Big Cat Invitational hosted student-athletes from 27 schools in Northern California from early morning until late in the afternoon on March 7.

The City Council met on Monday, March 16, this week to issue a pair of proclamations, hear a report from its fire department and a request for support for a quarter-cent sales tax extension for SMART, and discuss ways to streamline and update its protocols.