By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

Join the Orion Art Center for a totally righteous night at their 31st annual Art Gala on March 21.

Honorees for the night are local artist Betsy Marsh who was named the Orion Art Center’s Artist of the Year. Marsh mainly creates landcapes and portraits with her favorite medium being oil. She was also the judge for this year’s K-8 Anything Goes exhibit.

Also being honored as Patron of the Arts is Leanna Haun. Haun was the previous owner of Picasso’s Grapevine in Clarkson. In December, it was announced that Picasso’s Grapevine would be merging with the Orion Art Center.

“We chose her (Haun) as Patron (of the Arts) because she was the previous owner of Picasso’s Grapevine and she just donated her business to us so we are honoring her for doing that,” said Karin Starick, executive director of the Orion Art Center.

This year’s theme, Totally 80’s, “Rocking radical night of mystery” is expected to be unlike any other for the fact that for the first time, it will feature an acting group from The Detroit Murder Company who will put on a three-part audience-interactive murder mystery. Twelve randomly selected guests will become suspects in a murder while the rest of the guests try to solve the case before the end of the night.

“We’ve never done anything like this before, this is the first time,” Starick said.

In addition to the show, there will be around 80 different auction items along with four large raffle baskets and a 50/50 raffle.

Proceeds from the raffle go to a local scholarship program for high school seniors.

Tickets are available at orionartcenter.org under the 2020 Annual Gala located on their Events page.

Tickets are $90/person and $680 for a table of eight. Tickets also include a buffet dinner as well as an open bar.

The 31st annual Orion Art Center Gala is on March 21 from 7 p.m. to midnight at the Paint Creek County Club located at 2375 Stanton Rd., Lake Orion.