While they won’t officially be Sweethearts of the Arts until February, friends of Don and Judy Hayes as well as Terry Bacon and Debra Parmenter are putting together their tributes to these two couples now.
Sweethearts of the Arts, which will celebrate its seventh anniversary in 2015, is a major fundraiser for the Durango Arts Center in addition to being an opportunity to honor people in the community who are supporters of the arts.
Bacon and Parmenter have volunteered time and financial support to organizations throughout the community, including the Fort Lewis College Foundation, Music in the Mountains, Women’s Resource Center, Friends of the FLC Theatre, the proposed Durango STEAM (science, theatre, education, arts and music) Park and, of course, DAC.
An avid photographer, Parmenter’s work was featured in the arts center’s first online exhibit. She exhibited her “In Full Bloom” collection last summer at Sorrel Sky Gallery. A graduate of Fort Lewis College, she has been in the local real-estate industry for 36 years.
Bacon, founder and former chief executive officer of Lore International Institute, is an author and poet. Currently a co-chairman of the STEAM Park effort, he served as president of the boards of both the FLC Foundation and Music in the Mountains.
Don and Judy Hayes may have moved to Durango 10 years ago, but they leapt into the local arts scene with both feet.
They chose Durango as a place to retire, they said, “because it is an art-centric, authentic town – not a retirement community.”
Don Hayes is past president of DAC’s board of directors, and Judy Hayes has served on its Exhibits Committee.
While living in Little Rock, Arkansas, Judy Hayes earned a second degree in fine arts and took a position at the University of Arkansas to develop an Arkansas Artists Directory. An accomplished artist herself, Judy Hayes’ work has been exhibited and sold in the Barbara Conrad Gallery at the arts center.
When DAC was in danger of closing several years ago, the Hayeses not only made a significant donation themselves, they worked with then-Board President Terry Swan and then-Executive Director Sheri Rochford Figgs to recruit several other major donors in a campaign to keep the doors open.
The two couples will join Stanton and Pat Englehart, the Ballantine family, Mary Ellen Long, Mona Wood-Patterson, Linda Mack Berven, Rochelle Mann, Gemma Kavanagh, Maureen May, Judith Reynolds, Ann Butler (the writer of this article), Carol Salomon, Scott Hagler and the Durango Friends of the Arts as people or organizations honored with the Sweethearts of the Arts sobriquet.
Part of the fundraising effort associated with the Sweethearts of the Arts event is a commemorative program featuring biographies of the honorees and tributes from friends and organizations they have supported. Tributes are due no later than Jan. 16, and range in price from $125 to $1,000.
abutler@durangoherald.com
Sweethearts tribute form (PDF)
Tributes
For more information about tributes for the Sweethearts of the Arts, email Lisa Mackey at lisamackey@bresnan.net or call 247-3004.
