Area arts council to begin search for new director

The Arts Council of Southeast Missouri hired Tom Howard as its new executive director in September 2000, at a point when it was foundering financially. His remedy in part was to cut programs in half to enable the organization to live within its $120,000 budget.

With the organization now in better financial condition, Howard plans to return to teaching, the profession that has occupied most of his working career. "I have missed teaching, being around kids and the activity of schools," he said.

Howard announced his resignation at the Arts Council's November meeting. The organization will begin searching for a new executive director after the first of the year.

In mid-January, Howard will begin teaching sixth-graders at Blanchard Elementary School as a substitute for a teacher going on maternity leave. At the end of March he will switch to Franklin Elementary School, filling in for another teacher going on maternity leave. He then hopes to find a permanent teaching job with a school district in the area.

Howard will perform his arts director duties on a part-time basis until a new director is hired and will stay on during the transition period. The Arts Council's executive assistant, Laura Brothers, has a master's degree in fine arts. Together they made a good mix, says Gaye Blank, a member of the Arts Council board for the past five years.

Blank, corporate secretary of Bi-State Oil, says she was invited onto the board in an attempt to bring on some people with business and not just art in their backgrounds.

"I think we definitely have to put an emphasis on the business structure of any organization," she said. "You concentrate on the main goal, whatever the organization is, but have also got to have the ability to budget and use money the best you can."

Funding challenges

She said Howard's local background, his ability to meet the public and to get corporate backing for activities helped him succeed. "He had a lot of very good ideas," she said.

New activities included a bus trip to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum, an art show in association with the City of Roses Music Festival and a co-sponsorship coming this spring of a performance by the Miami City Ballet.

Keeping any arts organization solvent is tricky.

"Anybody who deals with the arts, including artists, has challenges of how to fund them," Howard said.

Half the organization's revenues come from the two craft fairs it sponsors. The other half comes from fees for its programs, memberships and grants.

Before Howard was hired, the organization was run by consecutive directors who were artists. Over five years, Greg Jones and then Daniel North increased the Arts Council program offerings from 63 to more than 260, instituted a Friday cinema night and a demonstration night at the galleries and dramatically broadened the summer arts program.

The Arts Council's programs were "overextended" when he came in, Howard says. In his year and a half on the job, he cut programming approximately in half and curtailed the number of hours the two galleries are open to the public.

"I tried taking a look at all the programs, especially from a funding point of view," he said. Howard deleted the Friday cinema night and the demonstration night and dropped summer arts program offerings that were not well attended -- pottery classes, for instance -- or that required substantial overhead, such as theater classes. The galleries now are open Tuesday through Friday instead of Monday through Saturday.

Controlling expenses

He and Brothers have concentrated on managing the organization's expenses.

"We have kind of gotten a handle on what we can do and what we shouldn't be doing," he said. "The next director, someone with a passion for the arts, will now have the basis to start and build."

Despite a projected 20 percent cut in funding from the Missouri Arts Council this year, the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri is financially sound, he says.

Before being hired by the Arts Council, Howard was the principal at St. Augustine School in Kelso. He had been at the school for 10 years and also taught at St. Mary's Cathedral School in Cape Girardeau. He was chosen from 36 applicants after North left the directorship to take a teaching position in St. Louis.

A Notre Dame High School and Southeast Missouri State University graduate, Howard has a master's degree in education from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

The abilities he brought to the job were administrative and not artistic, he says.

"Now is a good time for someone who has a better artistic vision than me to take it the next step."

Awareness of the Arts Council has been heightened since he took over, and business practices have been implemented that should help the council stay solvent, Howard said. He also pointed to the addition of three new board members -- Rebeccka Hollis of Bank of America and Drs. Elizabeth Horton and Thomas Sparkman -- who have given the organization new energy.

He himself is anxious to begin teaching again.

"This has been a wonderful sabbatical for me," Howard said.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182