BEND, OR -- An Idaho woman visited Bend's Tower Theatre, this weekend, hoping to get tips on how to renovate an old movie theater into a performing arts facility. Janis Johnson heads up a theater preservation group in Lewiston, Idaho. She tells KBND News, “You really need success models to understand what your abstract ideas are, or what your intangible ideas are; what does it actually look like in reality? So it was very confirming that it can be done.”

Johnson is also visiting other northwest cities with performing arts facilities renovated from former movie theaters. “Being able to come to the Tower, which I knew a little bit about - how it had almost been completely lost and now is very successful - was really important for me to understand and have a concrete example.” She hopes to emulate the success of the Tower Theatre in her north-central Idaho town.