Bishop Dunne is at it again with the newsworthy public events. And seriously, they’re not paying me to say so.

The school’s 24th-annual GeoTech Conference is Thursday through Saturday, with special guests Mireya Mayor — a primatologist and National Geographic correspondent who discovered a new species of lemur in the Madagascan jungle — and Kobie Boykins, a NASA engineer who was part of the team that made the two Mars Exploration Rovers.

The program is catered to teachers, but anyone who registers (which you can do here) is welcome to attend.

Former City Council member Steve Salazar, who lives in West Dallas, announced today that he wants to represent the newly created, incumbent-free District 33 in the U.S. House. The district includes a chunk of North Oak Cliff, but it also stretches across Grand Prairie and Arlington to Fort Worth. Click here, and you can check out all of the newly approved districts, zooming all the way down to the street level if you’d like. I did like, and I saw that Jason Roberts’ house just barely sits inside District 33. A few weeks ago, Roberts tweeted that he was thinking about making a run for Congress. Will he?

Update: Roberts told me via Twitter, “Still trying to decide if the map will be disputed again. If not, I like the urban centric focus w/ the Trinity included.”

So I just left Brashear Elementary, (just west of Kiest Park) where I had an interview with nurse Francis Ray. Ray, as a teacher told me beforehand, is not your typical school nurse. This morning’s Black History Month assembly was dedicated to her and her hard work: healing kids, working with a nonprofit that provides glasses for schoolchildren, and – wait for it — rocking the world of romance.

Turns out Ray is kind of a big deal. Her writing has made the New York Times and USA Today best-seller lists, and she has 46 romance and mainstream novels under her belt. Forty-six.

Needless to say, I wrote down everything she told me — most of which came second to her praising the heck out of her students and coworkers. We’ll have more in Oak Cliff People soon.

The Cafe Brazil over at Bishop Commons is offering a free daily special today with the purchase of any drink.

Today’s delicacy is the Coco Chanel:

A marinated chicken breast, coated in Sweet Coconut and fried to perfection. They then layer it over white rice, infused with coconut milk, and top them both with a very flavorful Coconut Gravy.  Served with our signature Black Beans.

Sounds delicious!

Oak Cliff People didn’t make out to this year’s edition of the Pin Show, the annual fashion event put on by Bishop Arts merchant Julie McCullough Kim. But our corporate siblings at StyleSheet did.

Dallas is going to celebrate the heck out of that new bridge, I tell you what. The West Dallas Chamber of Commerce and the city of Dallas, along with myriad other nonprofits, have enough events packed into this weekend that will leave most organizers needing a monthlong sabbatical, I’m sure.

Some of the cool events include Literacy Instruction For Texas’ (LIFT) Famous and Infamous in West Dallas, as well as the Fort Worth Avenue Development Group’s cemetary ride. Of course, there’s the Parade of Giants, and lots of great music. The complete list of official Bridge-O-Rama events is pretty extensive, totaling more than 30 ways to knock out a few hours with the family. The best part? Most everything going on this weekend won’t cost you a dime.

Last night, I and the lovely Halley Homen attended the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce’s real estate networker at Zang Triangle. This was my first opportunity to take a peek inside the upscale apartment complex. I was struck by how the developers smartly use their proximity to the Bishop Arts District as a selling point. The leasing office is filled with beautiful pictures of Eno’s, Epiphany, and other BAD establishments.

OK, the headline is a bit of a tease, but if it caught your eye then listen up. We’re developing a reader’s guide to the best restaurants in town that offer free kids’ meals. Ideally, we’ll have a place or two listed each day of the week.

As I lack the requisite children to know this information on my own, I’m calling for back up. Where do you take your munchkins to beat the munchies on the cheap?  Comments are on.

The Bishop Arts District Wine Walk is coming up on Thursday. I know what you’re thinking. You’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all. No big deal, right?

Wrong.

On March 1, the wine walk makes a stop at 403 Melba Street, which will be home to a pop up art gallery called The Green House and opening reception for “Havana, Cuba: Te vemos, 54 years after the revolution.”

The show, which includes photographs from Hunky’s owner Rick Barton, Martha Gordon, and Patricia Richards, captures a culture at standstill with large billboards laden with propaganda and Che Guevara’s likeness among ancient and crumbling American automobiles that would be considered classic cars on this side of the gulf.

The reception starts at 6 p.m. and will continue for two more days, closing at 6 p.m. March 3.

For more information, contact Rick Barton at 214-762-1798 or Patricia Richards at 817-515-6590.

Photo: Justin Terveen

The Dallas Running Club is putting on the Trinity River Levee Run, a 5K and 10K race across the new Santiago Calatrava-design bridge this weekend as part of the three-day Bridge-O-Rama festival. Registration is still open for both races, which are sponsored by the Trinity Commons Foundation.

Get your bib number and take a look at the race maps if you want to be one of the first to run across the cool new bridge.