Event Calendar for Wordpress (Thesis theme)

I am sure there is a way to do this, but before I re-invent the wheel, has anyone seen a tidy way to publish a calendar of events with each event being its own blog post? These posts would assemble on one page, representing the current season's event calendar.

And then, I want to feature the next upcoming event at the top of the event page (plus retain its entry chronologically below).

I think it will be a combo of manipulating the post dates and using "featured" post, but maybe there is an easy plug-in or widget that does all this easy-squeezy?