Four local arts figures to receive the CARA award

Four Denton residents will take home a Community Arts Recognition Award in the annual awards ceremo­ny 7 p.m. Friday. Winners this year are being honored for artistic achievement as individuals, educa­tors and business­men.

Jo and Johnny Williams will accept the award — called “CARA” for short in the category for individuals. Carold Nunez will be given the award in the edu­cation category, and TexasBank President Randy Robinson will accept the communi­ty arts award being given to the outstand­ing local business.

The Greater Denton Arts Council gives the award yearly to honor those who have worked to promote the arts in Denton. Over the years, the award has evolved into an honor for arts pro­motion and production on the corpo­rate level, in schools and in the com­munity.

The husband-and-wife arts team met at Weatherford Junior College and the cou­ple married two years later. Ms. Williams earned a degree in art education in 1969 and immediately hooked a teaching position at Strickland Middle School after graduation. When Johnny Williams graduated, he entered the Air Force and the couple spent four years hop­ping from base to base. They returned to Denton, where Mr. Williams pur­sued a master’s degree in theater at the University of North Texas. Mr. Williams didn’t expect to stay in Denton, but he and his family did and he even nabbed the man­aging director’s job for the Denton Community Theatre. Since then, Johnny Williams has spent time working for the Com­munity Theater and Music Theatre of Denton, the company that stages three musicals each season. He’s played some of the theater’s favorite roles —Cervantes in Man of La Mancha, Ebenezer Scrooge in Christmas Carol, and George Hay in Moon Over Buffalo.

Jo Williams is known across the Southwest for her paintings, which combine a classic sort of impressionism with her signa­ture vibrancy and incisive obser­vation. She had a commercial gallery Austin Street Gallery, for years. She still participates in the Austin Street Artist Association, a cooperative painter’s network that grew out of her studio. She also teaches painting privately.

“I’ve known Jo for about 15 years,” said Claude Cheek, a retired UNT faculty member who met the painter when he was looking for a hobby.

“She turned out to be such a good teacher,” Mr. Cheek said. “She took me from where I had no experience to now, when I some­times receive awards around the country.  She has been a constant backbone in our local art club. She gets things done and has high standards. She’s the epitome of a professional in her field. Enroll in one of her classes and you’ll understand what I mean?

Carold Nunez is a native Texan who earned bachelor’s and mas­ter’s degrees in music education at UNI He is best known in Denton for his contribution to the Denton school district’s orchestral program, especially at Denton High School.

His work there, with the many honors he has earned as a direc­tor, is the reason he takes the 2003 arts recognition award for arts education. He is retired from public education as the coordina­tor of orchestras and the director of the Denton High School orchestra.

Mr. Nunez is also a composer and has lent his talent at the piano in the inaugural “Arts In Our Backyard” concert for the arts council. In fact, he was the subject of a dissertation by Jan Garverick, who focused on Mr. Nunez’s compositions and the way they meet the needs of string students.

Mr. Nunez is still active in the arts. He’s a professional clinician, helping students hone their musical skills during clinics and even helping the arts council in its membership drives.

The arts council awards the very first business community arts recognition award to TexasBank this year.

“It was a surprise to me,” said Mr. Robinson, who serves on the arts council board and will serve as the council president next term. “I actually had the opportu­nity to nominate, as did all the members of the council. I didn’t nominate us [TexasBank]. There are a lot of other businesses out there I think deserve it?

TexasBank promotes the arts in Denton County through an annual Texas Independence Day Art Contest open to fourth-graders in Denton public schools. The company asks the grade school students to interpret what Texas means to them. Winners get ribbons and savings bonds.

“Not only are we promoting Texas history and themes, but we’re promoting the art done by these fourth-graders,” Mr. Robinson said.

Bank employees volunteer during the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival every year, he said, and the company has run the festival’s finance office for the last several years.

The awards ceremony is 7 p.m. Friday at the Center for the Visual Arts, 400 E. Hickory St. in Denton. Attire is coat and tie. Tickets are $20. Reservations must be made by Tuesday. For reservations, call 940-382-2787.

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877 Here-mail address is cbreeding@den­tonrc.com.