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May Issue 2004
Blue Ridge Heritage Initiative in NC Wins Presidential Award
President George W. Bush presented North Carolina Arts Council Executive Director Mary B. Regan and Folklife Director H. Wayne Martin with the first Preserve America Presidential Award for heritage tourism on May 3, 2004, in the Oval Office. The Arts Council and its partners received the award for their work with the Blue Ridge Heritage Initiative.
"These are the first and highest awards", said First Lady Laura Bush at a ceremony following the Oval Office visit. She went on to commend the project for "strengthening the economic vitality of the region."
The Preserve America award in heritage tourism was created to recognize demonstrated commitment to the protection and interpretation of America's cultural or natural heritage assets. The annual awards event was timed to coincide with National Historic Preservation Week, which occurs May 3-9 this year with a theme of "New Frontiers in Preservation."
"North Carolina has many cultural firsts – the first state-funded symphony, first state art museum, first local arts council, and now the first Preserve America Presidential Award," said Lisbeth C. Evans, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. Four heritage trails of the Initiative are at the heart of the 2003 designation of 25 counties in western North Carolina as a National Heritage Area. These trails are: Blue Ridge Music Trail; Cherokee Heritage Trail; Craft Heritage Trails of Western North Carolina; and Farms, Gardens, and Countryside Trails of Western North Carolina.
The music trail extends into Virginia, and the Cherokee trail includes Tennessee and Georgia. These themed self-driving trails include guidebooks and websites that explore cultural stories of the southern mountains. "The Blue Ridge Heritage Initiative strives to present and preserve living cultural traditions and arts that have been shaped over generations," said Martin. "We hope that through the Initiative, the Southern Appalachians will be home to traditional music, handmade crafts, Cherokee cultural traditions, and rich agricultural ways for generations to come."
"Heritage tourism serves a dual purpose, to bolster the economy and to foster sharing of the past a little known fact is that heritage tourism creates jobs, in a $7.5 billion industry," said Gale Norton, US Secretary of the Interior, in her remarks at the ceremony. The other winner of the 2004 Preserve America Presidential Awards for Heritage Tourism was the Lackawanna Heritage Valley, located in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Winners of the 2004 Preserve America Presidential Awards for Private Preservation were the historic Beaumont Hotel, located in Ouray, CO, and the historic Raven Natural Resources Learning Center, located in Kootenai National Forest in Libby, MT.
For more information on the Preserve America initiative, the award winners, and to nominate candidates for next yearıs Preserve America Presidential Awards, please visit (www.firstlady.gov) or (www.PreserveAmerica.gov).
The NC Arts Council is a division of the NC Department of Cultural Resources. Its mission is to enrich the cultural life of the state by nurturing and supporting excellence in the arts and by providing opportunities for every North Carolinian to experience the arts. The Arts Council is a catalyst for the development of arts organizations and facilities throughout the state by making grants and offering technical assistance.
For more information about resources at the Arts Council, go to (www.ncarts.org), or contact Joe Newberry at 919/733-2119 or e-mail at (joe.newberry@ncmail.net) at the Department of Cultural Resources, North Carolina Arts Council Communications Office, 4632 MSC Raleigh, NC 27699-4632 or calling 919/733-2822.
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.