AWARD
The Kansas City, Mo.-based Mid-America Arts Alliance is giving its $10,000 Don Munro Leadership in the Arts Award to Hot Springs poet Kai Coggin.
The award, named in honor of the late Don Munro, recognizes outstanding contributions to the arts and celebrates those who have made a significant impact on the local arts community in Arkansas, according to a news release.
Munro, a Hot Springs businessman and philanthropist, died in 2022 at the age of 94. He led the Arkansas Community Foundation for 10 years and served the Mid-America Arts Alliance board of directors from 2005 to 2022.
“It is an incredible honor to be chosen for the Don Munro Leadership in the Arts Award, and to walk in the noble shoes of a man who made the world better with every step he walked,” Coggin says.
“I can close my eyes and remember his charming smile, and his humble and kind nature. As an artist living in Hot Springs for the last 11 years, I know countless times that Don’s philanthropy and support has directly impacted the growth and success of artistic endeavors in our city, rippling impacts out infinitely.”
Coggin, the inaugural Poet Laureate of the city of Hot Springs, is author of four collections, most recently “Mining for Stardust” (FlowerSong Press 2021). She is also a certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 teaching artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council and host of Hot Springs’ Wednesday Night Poetry weekly open mic series.
She was also the recipient of the 2021 Governor’s Arts Award, twice named “Best Poet in Arkansas” by the Arkansas Times and nominated for Arkansas State Poet Laureate and Hot Springs Woman of the Year.
ART
Online exhibition
The Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts is showing the work of 40 Arkansas women artists in its online 2023-25 “Juried Artist Registry,” available at acnmwa.org/programs/juried-artist-registry.
Juror Matthew Bailey, gallery director and assistant professor of art and design at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith, selected the artists; entry was open to women artists who are from or who reside in Arkansas.
The artists:
Katie Adkins, Little Rock; Shirley Anderson, Hot Springs Village; Brit Borcher, Fayetteville; Beverly Buys and Barbara Cade, Hot Springs; Heidi Carlsen-Rogers, Bella Vista; Susan Chambers, Little Rock; Terese Conway, Rogers; Melissa Cowper-Smith, Morrillton; Carly Dahl, Batesville; Tessa Davidson, Searcy; Jenny Dowd, Prairie Grove; Shelby Fleming, Fayetteville; Kristen Franyutti, Jonesboro; Louise Halsey, Ozark; Katie Harper, Fort Smith; Tammy Harrington, Russellville; Rene Hein, Little Rock; Karlyn Holloway, Austin; Dolores Justus, Hot Springs Village; Suzanne King, Fort Smith; Lisa Krannichfeld, Little Rock; Kellie Lehr, Bentonville; Stephanie Lewis, Bella Vista; Robin Miller-Bookhout, Hot Springs; Jessica Mongeon, Russellville; Mandy Mooneyham, Paragould; Laura Raborn, Little Rock; Shakeelah Rahmaan, Little Rock; Jennifer Rospert, Little Rock; Sabine Schmidt, Fayetteville; Amy Scoggins, Fort Smith; Dominique Simmons, Little Rock; Bethany Springer, Fayetteville; Katherine Strause, Little Rock; Lisa Thorpe, Little Rock; Lynnette Watts, Hermann, Mo.; Elizabeth Weber, Little Rock; Brande Wilkerson, Beebe; and Emily Wood, Little Rock.
THEATER
New artistic director
The Weekend Theater has named David Weatherly as its new artistic director. Weatherly, a character actor and director who has worked with almost every theater in Central Arkansas (amateur and professional) over the past 30-plus years. He studied theater at the University of Central Arkansas before moving to New York City to study musical theater performance at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. He moved back to Arkansas in 2009 and has performed regularly at the Weekend and Studio theaters.
Hot Springs poet Kai Coggin is the recipient of the Don Munro Leadership in the Arts Award from the Mid-America Arts Alliance. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
