A week from Friday is the annual Spring into Jazz celebration which each year highlights the contributions of the Urban League of Dane County. This year’s anniversary is the 39th. The Urban League is one of our community’s most important organizations and its work on behalf of education, kids, families and economic empowerment for African Americans is vital.
But this year’s celebration is especially bitter-sweet, as it will serve as yet another acknowledgement of the countless contributions of one of Dane County?and Wisconsin’s?most respected leaders, LaMarr Billups. Billups has worked in state government, in Washington for Senator Russ Feingold, and at the UW as a special assistant for two chancellors. He’s worked on Monona Terrace, Overture Center, the Edgewood College Board and on and on. There is very little in the way of positive growth and development in this region in which Billups has not had a hand. He is simply one of the most trusted, respected and loved Madisonians of the last 30 years. And he’s leaving.