Every child is an artist...

THE TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL ARTS AWARDS LUNCHEON

April 19, 2006 Antlers Hilton Hotel Jim Dolan

Jim Dolan, Chairman, President and CEO of Dolan Media Company, returns to Colorado from a distinguished career in journalism and media to speak of his lifelong love for art. Born in Trinidad, Colorado, where he and his wife Sylvia still own a portion of his family’s ranch, Dolan entered journalism in his early teens in Oklahoma and worked his way through the University of Oklahoma as a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman. He has since won several dozen local, regional and national journalism awards for writing, reporting and editing, and in 1998 was named outstanding alumnus of the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord College of Journalism. During his tenure with the San Antonio News-Express, Dolan significantly expanded coverage of the arts and pioneered a collaborative project between the paper and local artists that produced more than a dozen original, limited- edition works delivered in Sunday special sections to the newspapers’ readers. Jim Dolan’s career has moved from the editorial office to a multiplicity of media business and entrepreneurial activities, about which he lectures at Harvard, Columbia and Oxford Universities. While he describes himself as “a failed painter,” his love for art continues to be expressed in his collection of modern painters, displayed in his company’s corporate offices and on loan to Midwestern museums. Arts Education Is Everyone’s Business!

Art by Children of Pikes Peak Region Schools, Collected & Displayed by Jeff Brown, Lew Davis, Tom Fleecs, Patricia McKenna, Chip Shaw, Joanne Williams

Music by Joey Crochet, guitarist, Da Vinci Academy and by students and faculty, Colorado Springs Conservatory

PROGRAM Master of Ceremonies: The Honorable Lionel Rivera Mayor of Colorado Springs Keynote Speaker: Jim Dolan President & CEO of Dolan Media Company “There’s an Artist In All of Us”

PRESENTATION OF AWARDS Mary Lou Anderson Scholarship Program Center for Nonprofit Excellence Colorado Springs Business Journal Pikes Peak Arts Council Bee Vradenburg Foundation Arts Business Education Consortium The Mary Lou Anderson Scholarship Program

Mary Lou Anderson was the founder and dynamic moving spirit of the ABE Consortium until she went on to improve arts education in heaven. (Those who have seen the most recent photographs from the Hubble telescope will have noted the aesthetic improvements she’s already made in that region.) In honor of her life, her work and her gently indomitable spirit, the ABE in conjunction and with the support of the Bemis School of Art have established a scholarship program for junior high and middle school students. Students are selected for this award on the basis of merit in art by their school principals. This year’s recipients are:

Audrey Ancell – Horizon Middle School Josephine A. Aquilar – Falcon Middle School Zach Brommfield – Fountain Middle School Daniel Burnett – Holmes Middle School Katley Ford – Manitou Springs Middle School Marion Jackson III – Carmel Middle School Rachel Kosbab – Challenger Middle School Ashley Kruse – Carson Middle School Allie Morgan – Discovery Canyon Campus Roberto Olivero – Janitell Jr. High School Allaynah Reed – Watson Jr. High School Loriaudra Rowe – Panorama Middle School Mario Sanchez – Mountain Vista Community School Vicky Sanders – North Middle School Martin Gomez Solis – Fox Meadow Middle School Joel Wenzel – Mountain Ridge Middle School Madi Westphal – Jenkins Middle School

4 Center for Nonprofit Excellence Award Business Support for the Arts Joe Morin - Manager, District 11 Production Printing Far above and beyond its day-to-day work for District 11, Production Printing has for years provided support and service to arts and nonprofit organizations, including in-kind graphics consultation and flexible exchange of goods and services. As ABE and many other groups can attest, the Production Printing staff is unfailingly generous, flexible and thoroughly professional in every respect. Colorado Springs Business Journal Awards Memorial Hospital – Oncology Wing Memorial Hospital has received the Colorado Springs Business Journal‘s Business Support for the Arts Award for their initiative in remodeling an outdated oncology section. What was once a branch equipped with pediatric-sized facilities has been transformed into a state-of-the-art, aesthetically captivating wing. The murals, photographs and paintings remind all of Colorado’s spectacular wilderness. Colorado Springs Independent The Colorado Springs Independent has been a steadfast supporter of the arts in Colorado Springs for many years. Due to its devotion to the arts community it has been given a Business Support for the Arts Award. The Business Journal trusts it will continue its generous dedication to the arts in years to come. Air Academy Federal Credit Union The Air Academy Federal Credit Union is doing its share to foster artistic creation among Colorado Springs youth. Every year since 1994, it has held a contest with scholarship money in ten school districts to spotlight and reward Colorado Springs’ especially talented young artists. It has been given a Business Support for the Arts Award for their efforts.

5 Pikes Peak Arts Council Awards

The Pikes Peak Arts Council ABE Awards are generously sponsored by the Colorado Springs Credit Union.

Partnership with the Arts - Joanne Bonicelli, Community Task Force Chair, Seasons of Hope

This Memorial Hospital project represents the first-ever collaboration among the arts, education and health care communities to integrate the arts into health care delivery. It is research-based, both in terms of design and potential impact on care givers and patients, and contains a component that offers ongoing interactive workshops to oncology care givers, focusing on melding the artistic experience with a holistic therapeutic model. Art, along with artists’ statements, can be found in the hallways, treatment rooms, waiting and dining areas of the oncology units. The focus is on providing therapeutic art that may help the patient find comfort and solace during their care.

Making Us Look Cool Award - Gwin Coleman

In 2003, Gwin created Funktion Flux, which led to the creation of a multi-disciplinary event “in hopes of exposing and pursuing positive changes in this community through awareness of cultural diversity and artistic expression to get people of all sorts to support the arts.” The results have been five incredible arts events – Art Splash I & II, Art Wars I & II and Masterpiece in the

6 Park. Events have showcased over 150 local artists in visual art, performance art, dance, poetry and music, and have raised over $7000 for local nonprofit organizations.

In the Trenches - Beth Fox Kret, Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration

Beth started as a parent volunteer and became Program and Public Relations Coordinator for all KCIC events, building programs that serve the schools, arts organizations and artists throughout the Pikes Peak Region. She has been part of creating and developing many of the most successful Imagination Celebration programs from Pepito’s Story, a community-wide youth theater performance, to “It Takes 5,” one of KCIC’s most successful ongoing youth programs. Mary Helsaple, KCIC board member, commented: “I have found Beth to be one of the most reliable, hardworking people I have known. She is an exceptional individual who knows how to be a part of the team, willingly sharing her knowledge, skills and abundance of energy with all those around her.”

Business Support of the Arts - Hillside Gardens

Now entering its sixth year, Hillside Gardens Nursery is a four- acre urban oasis tucked just east of downtown. For several years, owner Larry Ash has infused music and the visual arts into the nursery. Each summer, a weekly concert series spotlights local musicians. Every summer Hillside also hosts a major day-long festival featuring bluegrass or blues music. And Hillside opens its gardens to a cadre of artists for plein-air paintings. The works those artists create are then featured in an annual exhibit that attracts hundreds of patrons. Hillside also purchases some of the works to hang in its café space. At Hillside Gardens, the arts aren’t just annual – they’re perennial!

7 The New Deal for the New Deal - City Auditorium Mural Conservation Project

In 2003 Barbara Dimond and Pat Musick, artists, and Bob Wade, Colorado Springs City Auditorium Manager, created The New Deal for the New Deal Association, a nonprofit organization for the purpose of conserving artworks created by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the mid 1930s. Their first endeavor was saving the two wall murals painted in the lobby of the City Auditorium by local artists Archie Musick and Tabor Utley, which had been exposed to years of dust, smoke and exhaust. Their efforts literally stopped the paint from peeling off the walls.

Arts in Support of Community - Smokebrush Foundation

In 1992, Kat Tudor founded the Smokebrush Foundation as a forum for contemporary art in the Pikes Peak Region. She and her husband, Bob, promote awareness of the arts by providing access to various arts media including theater, music, film, public art installations and gallery exhibitions. They also make the gallery space available free of charge to a variety of community and arts organizations, holding fund-raisers and partnering with organizations with such diverse goals as Future Self, Pikes Peak Community College, Poetry West, MADD and Medicine Wheel Bicycle Organization. 8 Bee Vradenburg Foundation

Bee an Arts Leader Award - Henry Tippie Henry infuses the arts in all aspects of his life. As the first and still-serving president of the board of the Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration, he has helped KCIC to flourish in bold new directions. Henry also has devoted his leadership skills by serving two terms as president of the Rampart High School Band Boosters Organization and through a variety of roles at Vista Grande Baptist Church. Henry’s dedication to the community is evidenced in the business world as well. He serves as general manager of Salem Communications radio stations KBIQ, KGFT and KZNT, and he just completed a term as president of the board of the Better Business Bureau. The Bee an Arts Leader Award, presented by the Bee Vradenburg Foundation, honors the legacy of Bee Vradenburg by recognizing an individual who has demonstrated sustained, passionate and innovative leadership toward advancing the arts in the Pikes Peak Region. Arts Business Education Consortium Awards Distinguished Arts Teachers Christie Williams - Art Teacher, Harrison School District - D2 A lifelong citizen of Colorado Springs, Christie Williams came to her current position at Giberson Elementary School from a seven-year career in art therapy. She has done yeoman service in introducing Colorado Standards for Literacy into the art classroom. She draws in not only students but also fellow teachers with her infectious devotion to art, and Williams- inspired art by those teachers shares wall space with her students’ work throughout the school. She has led the way to Giberson Elementary’s participation in the KCIC, another of the many ways in which she amplifies her belief in art’s vital importance.

9 Gary Arrasmith - Instrumental Music Director, Rampart High School - D20

Under Gary Arrasmith’s direction, the Rampart High School instrumental music program has grown to one of the largest in Colorado, enrolling over 17 percent of the student body. The program is also one of the most widely and frequently honored in the state, and in 2003 Arrasmith was named one of 50 Directors Who Make a Difference in the United States. The Rampart Instrumental Music Program is one of seven in Colorado to earn the CBA Exemplary Band Award, and the program’s integration with Mountain Ridge Middle School’s program serves as a model for many other districts.

Scott Singmaster and Chuck Silloway - Music Teachers, Mountain Ridge Middle School - D20

The success of Gary Arrasmith’s program rests significantly on the achievements of Scott Singmaster and Chuck Silloway, whose extensive and imaginative instrumental music program currently enrolls over 500 students at Mountain Ridge Middle School. Both teachers go far beyond the norm to inspire their students to appreciate and learn quality, discipline, self-respect and respect for others. Their collaboration with each other and with the Rampart High School program gives students a living example of harmony.

10 Distinguished Administrator

Tim Callahan - Principal, Keller Elementary School - D11

Tim Callahan’s multiplicity of nominations, from teachers, parents and support staff, portray a principal who joyously supports arts education, not only by tirelessly providing resources for classes, exhibits and performances, but by his constant presence and positive interest. Mr. Callahan is not only aware of the research showing the positive effects of arts involvement on academic performance; he also makes sure that his academic instructors and parents are aware of it. He is a leader by example and positive reinforcement, a constant and powerful voice for arts education.

Dr. Chuck Poncelow - Principal, Discovery Alternative High School - D3

Dr. Poncelow has put his heart and soul into introducing and supporting an arts program for his students, and his creativity and dedication to the value of arts education have paid off in remarkable student achievements. In the words of his colleague Jim Felice, “Mr. Poncelow has helped so many of his students discover the greatness and possibilities within themselves.”

11 Ongoing Support for Arts Education

Susan Edmondson - Executive Director, The Bee Vradenburg Foundation

During and after her career as Entertainment Editor for the Colorado Springs Gazette, and now as Executive Director of the leading arts-supporting foundation in the region, Susan Edmondson has given unstintingly of her time, expertise and candor to the cause of art. She has relentlessly and creatively made the case for the economic as well as the intrinsic and social value of the arts to our community.

Cottonwood Artists’ School

When Cottonwood Artists’ School leased the old Colorado Springs Utilities building, it created a host of long-sought opportunities – inexpensive studio space for artists, a central display venue that immediately began collaborating with other downtown galleries and studios to recreate the palmy days of the Depot Arts District, an extensive curriculum of classes for both adults and young people, and, most recently, a mentorship/ fellowship program for rising artists. In 2005 the school received a Governor’s Award for Downtown Excellence.

12 Unique Project David and Eve Sckolnik - Thursday Night Recital Series For the past five years, musician of remarkable variety and quality have performed for Colorado Springs School students and for the public, bringing imaginative and off-the-beaten-path concerts accompanied by art exhibits and workshops. David and Eve Sckolnik have created, initiated and supported this series and provided the determined organizational skills and enthusiasm to make it flourish.

Trish Shubarth - Art Teacher, Fountain-Fort Carson - D8

For the past three years, Trish Shubarth has created, operated and financed “Partners in Art,” a program that brings up to 35 military parents and their 4th or 5th grade children together to learn and create in a number of media. Financed by Trish’s collecting of Box Tops for Education, this program brings the joy and solace of art to our military families.

Community Support for Arts Education

Deanna Patrick - World Language Teacher & Department Chair, Sierra High School - D2

Working with Martile Rowland of Opera Theatre of the Rockies, Deanna Patrick has for the past six years introduced opera to more than 600 Sierra High School students, coordinating transportation, chaperones, ticket sales, presentations at the school and preparing students in all ways to appreciate the opera experience. Deanna Patrick was chosen as one of 50 U.S. teachers for the 2005-2006 American Star of Teaching Award.

ABE Special Recognition Awards

13 The ABE Consortium Extends Gratitude to:

Academy District Twenty Air Academy Credit Union Kris Anderson Antlers Hilton Hotel Barefoot Wines Bemis School of Art Cheyenne Mountain School District #12 Colorado Springs Business Journal Colorado Springs Conservatory Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Colorado Springs School District #11 Current USA Tim Davis El Paso Council PTA Harrison School District #2 Glenda Hegr Mary Helsaple Karen Hobson, El Paso & Colorado Reflections Ron Kohen Malcolm McCollum Taffy Mulliken Skip Mundy Tessa Nelson The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Dee Thomas Rowdy Tompkins Widefield School District #3

Scholarship Donations - 2005 Thanks to all who contributed to the Mary Lou Anderson Scholarship Fund in 2005.

14 The ABE Consortium Academy District Twenty - Lew Davis & Shell Acker Bemis School of Art - Tara Thomas Center for Nonprofit Excellence - Lynne Telford Cheyenne Mountain School District #12 - Caryl Thomason (Co-Secretary) Colorado College - Kris Stanec Colorado Springs Business Journal - Lon Matejczyk & David Truesdell Colorado Springs Conservatory - Keith Wells Colorado Springs Dance Theater - Patti Boles Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Colorado Springs School District #11 - Tom Fleecs Current USA El Paso Council PTA - Dorothy Boyd & Janice Haley The Fountain Valley School of Colorado - Jeff Brown Harrison School District #2 - Patricia McKenna Glenda Hegr Hooked on Books Bookstore - Jim Ciletti The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation - Joyce E. Robinson (Co-Chair) & Donna Plunkett (Co-Secretary) Mary Lou Anderson Legacy - Kris Anderson (Co-Treasurer) Pikes Peak Arts Council - Eve Tilley Pikes Peak Community College - Taffy Mulliken (Co-Chair) Libby Pitman (Co-Treasurer) The Studio - Patti Boles Widefield School District #3 - Joanne Williams

Today’s (and Tomorrow’s) Musical Star

Joey Crochet is a second grader at the da Vinci Academy, where he is a member of the guitar club. He also plays with the 5th grade jazz band. He has loved the guitar since he was three years old. At five his parents gave in and purchased a guitar for him. The rest is history. He loves all styles of music. His favorite composer is Mozart and his favorite groups are Led Zeppelin and the Beatles. He has recently begun composing his own songs and to study privately with Dan Nelsen. Joey willingly practices three hours a day!

15 “ Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” - Pablo Picasso