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Kentucky Stars 2005
Downtown Lexington Corporation
Kentucky Stars Program
Award Winners, 2005
MALCOM GREAR
Awarded the Kentucky Star for Visual Arts
Malcom Grear was born in Mill Springs, KY in 1931 and graduated from Somerset High School in 1949.
After four years in the Navy, he attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati. After his junior year he accepted the position of assistant designer to Walter Baremann, furniture designer, but returned to finish his senior year.
Grear moved to Louisville in 1958 and started a freelance design business and taught at the Allen R. Hite Art Institute and at the University of Louisville. He took a teaching position at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1960. That same year he started Malcolm Grear Designs.
He has received numerous awards for his work, from national to international organizations including the American Institute of Graphic Art, The International Center of Typographic Arts, and the Art Society of North America.
He has made design contributions to the Providence Preservation Society, The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, The Metropolitan Opera, Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the 15 cent Commemorative Stamp honoring the Veteran’s Administration’s 50th Anniversary, and the seal for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Grear was selected from over 500 firms to develop the “Look” of the 1996 Centennial Games in Atlanta. The studio also designed the gold, sliver, and bronze commemorative medals, the 31 sports pictograms, the hand relay torch, the traveling cauldron and safety lantern, and a commemorative poster.
His works have been published in numerous magazines, books, and journals.
TOM T. HALL
Awarded the Kentucky Star for Music Arts
Tom T. Hall was born in Olive Hill, Kentucky in May, 1936. He was forced to quit high school at a young age and helped support his family by working in a factory. During this time he formed his first band the Kentucky Travelers. The group played gigs all over and had frequent spots on a radio station in Morehead, KY.
In 1963 he was discovered by Jimmy Key who signed Hall as a songwriter. Later that year, Jimmy Newman took Hall’s song “DJ for a Day” to the top of the country charts and it wasn’t long before more and more artists were having success with Hall’s songs. In 1967, Hall decided to perform his own songs. Although initially success was slow, everything changed when Jeannie C. Riley recorded his song “Harper Valley P.T.A.”. It spenr three weeks at the stop of the charts and sold over six million records. His song also won a Grammy and was named Single of the Year by the Country Music Association. The success of this song brought attention to Hall, and he continued his achievement with a series of hits that continued to top the charts into the early 70s. He appeared on television, becoming almost a regular on the T.V. show “Hee Haw”. Between 1971 and 1976 he had five number one hits.
Although he retired in 1986, Hall has kept himself busy releasing more records and publishing nine books. Known as a storyteller, a songwriter, with a keen eye for detail and narrative, Hall has played an instrumental part in the history and development of country music.
ISAAC SCOTT HATHAWAY
Awarded the Kentucky Star for Visual Arts
Isasc Scott Hathaway was born in
Lexington in 1872 and attended Chandler Normal College. He spent a brief
amount of time as an elementary school teacher, and the models that he produced
as teaching aids quickly garnered appreciation from his peers. Not long
after this, Hathaway opened his own business, the Afro Art Company, which later
changed its name to the Isaac Hathaway Art Company.
He produced commissioned sculptures for Woodmen of Union, Arkansas, Grambling College, Louisiana, North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company, and a host of other groups. He is perhaps best known for the over 100 busts and life and death masks he made of notable African Americans including Frederick Douglas, Carter Woodson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Cassius Clay, and M.A. Cassidy.
Hathaway was the designer of the Booker T. Washington commemorative coin commissioned by Harry S. Truman, and he also designed the George Washington Carver fifty-cent piece.
In addition to his artistic works, Hathaway influenced history in a more direct manner by introducing ceramics into the college curriculum when he founded the Department of Ceramics at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama where he eventually taught ceramics for ten years.
JON JORY
Awarded the Kentucky Star for Theatrical Arts
Jon Jory was born in Pasadena, CA but for 31 years was the director of Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. He is currently teaching drama at University of Washington’s School of Drama.
After joining Actor’s Theatre in 1969 he has directed more than 140 plays and has to his credit more than 1,300 productions. Under his direction the theatre’s budget grew from $244,000 three decades ago to $8.3 million in 1999.
He has discovered new playwrights, some of whom have gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes. Under Jory’s leadership the ATL won the Margo Jones Award, the Jujamcyn Theatres Award, and was recognized with a special Tony award as a distinguished regional theatre.
In 1975, as part of his attempt to revive ATL, Jory started the Festival of New American Plays, now known as the Humana Festival of New American Plays, which is now considered to be the most prestigious new play festival in the country.
ATL is now considered a fundamental part of the Kentucky cultural and artistic landscape and has the reputation of being one of the best regional theatres in the nation.
CHRISTINE JOHNSON SMITH
Awarded the Kentucky Star
for Vocal Music
Christine Johnson Smith was born in Hopkinsville in 1911 and moved to Owensboro in her high school years.
In 1942 she received critical acclaim for the role of Mrs. Page in “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, leading to other roles with the New York Opera Company in MacBeth, The Fair at Sorochintsy, Pique Dame, Cavalleria Rusticana, Carmen, La Fortza Del Destino, Girl in the Golden West, and Rigoletto.
In 1943 Christine Johnson Smith won the audition for the Metropolitan Opera which landed her the role of Erda in Wagner’s “Das Reingold”. She was the youngest person to ever sing the role at that famed opera house. She earned her place as a Broadway legend with the help of Richard Rogers. She was offered the role of Nettie Fowler in Carousel in which Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “June is Busting Out All Over” just for her. After Carousel closed in 1950 she moved back to Owensboro and married her high school sweetheart and raised two daughters and taught vocal lessons. One of her pupils was Florence Henderson who later found success on Broadway and on the “Brady Bunch.”
She was nominated for a Tony Award for best supporting actress in 1945 for her portrayal in Carousel.
WALTER TEVIS
Awarded the Kentucky Star for Literary Arts
Walter Tevis grew up in Madison County and attended Model High School and the University of Kentucky and served two years in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was a writer for the Kentucky Highway Department and taught school at Science Hill, Hawesville, Irvine, Carlisle, and then at the University of Kentucky.
Tevis was an English professor at Ohio University from 1965-1978. He wrote seven novels in his lifetime, three of which were made into major motion pictures of the same name: The Hustler (1959), The Color of Money (1984), and The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963). All of three of Tevis’ movies starred well know names such as Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, David Bowie and Tom Cruise. Also, the films were nominated for and won multiple awards, such as the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the Golden Scroll Awards and the BAFTA Awards. The Hustler, the most well known of the three, received international acclaim at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina.
He also wrote Mockingbird (1980), Far from Home (1981), The Steps of the Sun (1983), and The Queen’s Gambit (1983).
He was nominated for the Nebula Award for best novel in 1980 for Mockingbird.
Walter Tevis passed away in 1984 and is buried in Richmond, Kentucky.
HELEN THOMAS
Awarded the Kentucky Star for Literary Arts
was born in Winchester, KY in 1920 and attended Wayne State University. She worked for United Press International (UPI) for 57 years and served as dean of the White House press corps as well as the White House Bureau Chief for UPI. She began covering the White House at the start of the Kennedy administration in 1961 and quickly became one of, if not the top, female journalists at the White House.
She was the only print journalist to travel with former President Nixon to China in 1972; she has covered every economic summit and was named in the World Almanac as one of the “25 Most Influential Women in America.”
Also, Thomas was the first woman officer of the National Press Club, the first woman to become a member of the White House Correspondents Association, the first woman member of the Gridiron Club, and in 1974 she became the first female White House bureau chief of a wire service.
Dubbed "The First Lady of the Press" for her dedication and hard work, Thomas was inducted into the Michigan Woman’s Hall of Fame in 1986. She has been awarded thirty honorary doctorate degrees, has won numerous awards for her work and has a lifetime achievement award created in her name by the White House Correspondents Association.
JOHN TUSKA
Awarded the Kentucky Star for Visual Arts
John Tuska was born in Pennsylvania and raised in New York. As a teen, he attended the High School of Music and Art in New York before enlisting in the Navy. When he came back from the service, he studied at Alfred University and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1960. He continued his education at the New York State College of Ceramics and earned his M.F.A. there.
After finishing his education, Tuska came to the University of Kentucky where he taught ceramics for 30 years. During his time at the University, Tuska released four major works of art, one of which was a commission from Vanderbilt University.
Throughout his lifetime of teaching and creating he received recognition for outstanding work in diverse media, including poetry, sculpture, collage, paper, graphite, and pastels.
Previously, he has had exhibits in almost 20 different states, and his work can also be found in Japan, Italy, Russia, Africa and France. To this day, his one man and group shows are still displayed virtually nationwide.
In addition, the University of Kentucky has honored Tuska’s achievements by undertaking an extensive study of his writings, sketches and overall body of work. Housing sketchbooks, diaries and notes; appointment books; printed materials; teaching materials; photographic prints; slides; and video tapes, the Tuska Collection covers just short of 70 years of work. Also, his last work, Illumine, was made into a permanent display. Both of these act as tributes to Tuska’s amazing and lasting artistic achievements.
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