Beezley receives Deschutes Cultural Coalition award
The Deschutes Cultural Coalition of the Oregon Cultural Trust presented its 7th annual Ben Westlund Memorial Award to Pamela Beezley from the Sunriver Music Festival on Dec. 19 at the Liberty Theater during The Arts and Culture Alliance’s Holiday Party.
The award was established in 2012 to honor the memory of former Oregon legislator and state treasurer Ben Westlund, who championed the creation of the Oregon Cultural Trust in 2001.
“Ben was a passionate advocate for support of our arts and culture assets in Oregon and believed that all people deserve access to cultural programs and the fundamental benefits they provide,” stated Deschutes Cultural Coalition Co-Chair Cate O’Hagan. “As a resident in Central Oregon, he was an ardent supporter of the arts here.”
“An extraordinary skill set is required to be a successful executive director of a nonprofit. To succeed, an executive director must possess sometimes contradictory attributes, such as vision and attention to detail, policy nerd attributes and charm, discipline and forgiveness, endurance and patience plus an ability to stand during receptions for hours and sit through years of meetings. To top it off, Pam exhibits an amazing level of enthusiasm and inquisitiveness that is unmatched in my experience. Congratulations Pam, you deserve this and much more,” said O’Hagan, who presented the award.
The focus of the evening for the DCC was to honor cultural hero Beezley with the Ben Westlund Memorial Award. The honor comes with a $1,000 cash award. If an individual is a recipient, they are invited to regrant the funds to a qualifying cultural nonprofit of their choice. Beezley announced she would donate the award to The Sunriver Music Festival.
Previous recipients of the award are Les Joslin, Bob Boyd, Brad Tisdel, Americana Project; Brad Porterfield, the Latino Community Association; Carol Leone, The Museum at Warm Springs and the City of Redmond.
The Deschutes Cultural Coalition distributes grant funding from the Oregon Cultural Trust to qualifying nonprofit cultural organizations in Deschutes County on an annual basis. The Arts & Culture Alliance, as the fiscal sponsor of the coalition, is the contact for more information: https://www.artsandcultureco.org/grants-1 or Jasmine Barnett, artsandculturealliance@gmail.com.
