The Oklahoma Arts Council recently announced members of the first class of Leadership Arts for 2008. Among the 22 communities and 19 counties represented, Murray State College employees Alan Burris, art instructor, Donna Graves, public information officer and Brian Landreth, digital arts instructor, have been selected to attend.
Leadership Arts is designed as a statewide network of community art leaders. Class members will learn how arts and cultural development can be harnessed to create economic opportunity, provide a high quality of community life, and ignite the creative potential of Oklahoma’s youth. This program is of special interest to rural communities.
The scheduled sessions are designed to include panel presentations and group discussions addressing critical issues in the community arts development. courtesy-Donna Graves
Session One covered The Arts and Community Quality of Life was recently held in Muskogee on February 5th in the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. This session focused on why and how the arts attract lifestyles for community citizens. I had been to Muskogee a lot growing up. I had three aunts who lived there and we would spend a week visiting them. I stopped going there in the mid-90's because I had too many obligations going on. It was really great to see the improvements and forward-thinking the leaders of Muskogee demonstrated for us during our visit.
I'll be visiting other cities through November as part of the Arts Leadership class. Donna and Alan are fun to travel with (don't tell our bosses we are having a good time) I'm really looking forward to it.
