TBBCA will award $17,500 to Tampa Bay area students to fund higher education in the arts
Tampa, Fla. (April 20, 2017) – Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture & the Arts (TBBCA) is proud to announce the Tampa Bay area high school students who have been selected for the 2017 Charlie Hounchell Art Stars fine and performing arts scholarships. This TBBCA program is named in honor of TBBCA Past President, the late Charlie Hounchell, who was the program’s founder and champion. TBBCA will award seven (7) scholarships totaling $17,500, one in each of fine and performing arts categories: theatre, dance, instrumental music, vocal music and visual arts, and this year extraordinarily two scholarships in the category of Literary Arts – one each for prose and for poetry. The 2017 winners of The Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships are: Visual Arts – Lilith Graham, senior, Pinellas County Center for the Arts, Gibbs High School; Literary Arts – Prose- Julianna Cherinka, senior, Countryside High School/St. Petersburg College-Early College; Literary Arts – Poetry- Laura De Sousa, junior, Howard W. Blake High School; Vocal Music – Kayelin Leonhirth, junior, Shorecrest Preparatory School; Dance – Adia Hollist, senior, Howard W. Blake High School; Instrumental Music – Julia Hossain, senior, Berkeley Preparatory School; Theatre – Natalie Cottrill, junior, St. Petersburg High School International Baccalaureate.
Since 2008, TBBCA has awarded financial assistance for higher education in the arts to more than 60 Tampa Bay area students, who are some of the most promising and talented young artists and performers in the nation. This year’s applicants from Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco Counties were judged and selected on the basis of talent and merit by a distinguished panel of experts in their field: Visual Arts – Joanna Robotham, Curator of Contemporary and Modern Art, The Tampa Museum of Art; Literary Arts – Lisa Unger, award-winning New York Times and internationally best-selling author; Vocal Music – Dawne Eubanks, classical soloist and voice instructor at Eckerd College and Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School; Dance – Helen Hansen French, Juilliard graduate, a member of Karen Reedy Dance, Buglisi Dance Theatre, and St. Pete Dance Alliance, and on faculty at John Hopkins Middle School and St. Petersburg College; Instrumental Music – Paul Wilborn, pianist, musician and bandleader, and Executive Director of The Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College; and Theatre – Eugenie Bondurant, singer, television and film actor. This year special presenter of the Literary Arts – Poetry winner will be St. Petersburg Poet Laureate, Helen Pruitt Wallace.
Scholarship recipients will showcase their talent at The Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, May 17th at 6:30 p.m. at TBBCA pARTner The Tampa Museum of Art. The TBBCA 2017 Impact Awards Honorees will be officially announced that during the ceremony. The event is free and open to the public.
TBBCA 2017 Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships are made possible through the extremely generous philanthropic donation support for scholarships and other programs by TBBCA pARTners Chair’s Circle: Premier Eye Care; Mark Mahaffey; Strategic Property Partners; The Tampa Bay Lightning; Stephen Gay/Gay & Associates Realtors; Linda and Michael Connelly; Greenberg Traurig; The Beaux Arts Group; Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick; The DeBartolo Family Foundation; Tampa Bay Magazine; Tampa Bay Times/*tbt; The Wilson Company; Chappell Roberts; Alex McKnight ArchivaImages; Cox Media Group; SONO Café/Maryann Ferenc; Playbook Public Relations, B2 Communications, and other pARTners and supporters.
TBBCA is a 501 (c) (3). To donate online to The Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarships go to www.tbbca.org. Individual scholarship naming rights and sponsorships are available. Contact TBBCA Executive Director susanaweymouth@tbbca.org or call TBBCA 813-221-2787.
About TBBCA
Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture & the Arts is a nonprofit organization founded in 1989, with the mission to unite Tampa Bay area businesses to champion arts education, arts and culture for a prosperous community. One of 11 national Business Committees for the Arts of the private sector network and pARTnership Movement of Americans for the Arts, TBBCA programs and pARTnerships provide resources, funding and support for arts education, arts and cultural organizations and artists serving Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco Counties.