by Joycelyne Fadojutimi

The first-ever Arts!Longview Honors celebration featured both pre- and post-reception activities to trumpet the creative achievements of trail blazing artist Pat George Mitchell. Various entertainers performed for the event before it concluded with Mitchell receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award medal for spending the half-century of 1972 to 2022 as founder/artistic director of the Longview Ballet Theater, with its final production of Cinderella. Arts!Longview Executive Director Christine Cavazos spoke for all when she declared:

“For more than fifty years Ms. Mitchell has shared her passion for dance and her love of the arts with our community. She has inspired and served as a mentor to thousands of students, teaching them not only about ballet, but also about life,” she said. “She [has] spent her life developing the talents of young dancers, nourishing our arts community and creating memorable ballets that our community will collectively treasure forever.”

The banquet was a whirlwind of creative presentations by ArtsView Children’s’ Theater, Dance Studio Longview, East Texas Symphonic Band, Kilgore College Rangerettes, former Longview Ballet Theater dancers, soloist Miranda Dolive as she sang to the accompaniment of pianist David Berryhill, and Theater Longview. All this followed moving pre-event selections by Berryhill and the Longview String Quartet.

“This may not be the first time that all of our performing arts partners are appearing on a stage together, but if it is not the first time, it’s certainly the first [time] in many years. We have incredible performers in East Texas who gave of their time and talents to spend this evening with us, and we were able to feature our theater groups, our music groups, and our ballet together on the same stage,” said Cavazos. “That in itself made this one of the most special evenings in our Cultural District.”

Established in 2019, Arts!Longview has always been part of the Cultural District. Cavazos says this lofty designation was made possible only through the efforts of arts partner groups who have sown and nurtured a strong arts community.

“We would not have a Cultural District today without our arts partners organizations and without visionary leaders like Pat George Mitchell, who first helped spark a love of the arts, history and culture in our community,” said Cavazos.

Arts!Longview pursues an objective of sowing and developing a widespread love of arts, history, and culture so as to celebrate and creatively expand the artistic community. For more information on Arts!Longview visit www.artslongview.org.