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The director of the school system’s Centre
for Performing and Visual Arts announced Tuesday that the first
Richard Brooks Visionary Awards of Artistic Achievement will be
given at an April 29 event at the Centre.
Centre Director Don Nixon said that the award – named in honor
of former Coweta County School Superintendent Richard Brooks –
will be given this year to country music superstar Alan and
Denise Jackson and the late writer Erskine Caldwell. The Brooks
Awards are being inaugurated to honor people who have
contributed significantly to the arts through Coweta County,
said Nixon, and the awards and annual ceremony will be given
each year afterward to local artists or contributors to the arts
in Coweta County.
The April 29 program will be open to the public and free,
although contributions to Coweta County arts scholarships will
be encouraged.
Information on reservations for the program will be announced
shortly.
The Richard Brooks Visionary Award of Artistic Achievement “will
be like our hall of fame for the arts,” said Nixon. “Intended to
recognize great contributors to artistic achievement as arts
patrons or as artists themselves.”
The award will also honor Brooks – who served as school
superintendent from 1994 to 2002 - for his stewardship over the
planning and construction of the Lower Fayetteville Road Centre.
The Centre will begin in 5th year of operation this April.
Brooks and school board members included the Centre as one of
the major projects proposed to voters in Coweta County’s first
Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, which was passed in 1997
by local citizens.
Superintendent Blake Bass had discussed the idea for the annual
awards program with Nixon earlier in the year. It is modeled on
the annual Kennedy Centre Honors for lifetime artistic
achievement, as a similar local award.
A panel of local citizens made up of Genette Barron, Winston
Dowdell and Joe Crain, Sr. were assembled to consider the
guidelines for the annual honor. It can go each year to artists
or non-artist contributors to the arts, and can be posthumous.
One recipient each year must also be a school system employee or
former employee.
The committee also decided on the first year’s nominees. “It is
a huge task, if you consider the number of outstanding artists
who come from Coweta County,” said Nixon. “There are so many
deserving figures already, and Superintendent Bass wanted a way
that we could recognize them for what they have accomplished,
and keep that association with these people who are from here
from or who have significantly touched people in this
community.”
“So it was a difficult selection on their part, and we will have
to keep it ongoing for several years to begin to recognize
worthy recipients,” he said.
“It is also a pleasure to have Richard Brooks be the namesake
for this award,” said Nixon. “His vision for creating the Centre
is why this award is called a visionary award.”
Superintendent Bass noted that many citizens were skeptical at
first about the Centre, which was proposed as a central
performing and visual arts facility which could serve the
schools in a central location, expand county fine arts programs,
and serve the public as well.
“Some people were criticizing building the Centre, saying it was
out in the middle of nowhere and no one would ever come,” said
Superintendent Bass. “Now it seems there’s not a night that goes
by that its not in use.”
“The Centre is certainly something that has added to the
education of our students and added to the growth of the arts in
Coweta County,” said Bass.
“There’s no doubt, but for Richard’s efforts and foresight, that
the Centre would have never been created,” said school board
member Mike Sumner, who served on the board when Brooks was
superintendent and was involved in the first SPLOST and the
Centre’s construction.
Nixon said that the Centre has been a benefit to county arts
programs overall.
“When you have three high school bands – each participating at a
difficult level of performance and all three receiving superior
ratings in competitions… when you have a high school theatre
troop winning state one-act honors and invited to the state
Thespian Conference and receiving and invitation to appear at
the National Thespian conference, you know something is making a
difference,” said Nixon.
Nixon added that Alan and Denise Jackson have accepted the
invitation to come to the Centre on April 29 to receive the
award, and that the local Caldwell museum has been notified and
asked to appear, and that museum officials have also notified
members of Caldwell’s family about the honor. |
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