NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Oct. 6, 2009

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Ann Dee Lee
Public Information Director
Oklahoma Arts Council
(405) 521-2931
anndee@arts.ok.gov

JIM TOLBERT TO RECEIVE
GOVERNOR’S ARTS AWARD

Oklahoma City, OK – Jim Tolbert, Oklahoma City, will be honored by Governor Brad Henry at the 34th Annual Governor’s Arts Awards. Tolbert will receive the Marilyn Douglass Memorial Award which recognizes an outstanding Arts Council member and was established in 1980, upon the deaths of Marilyn Douglass, a council member, and her husband Rev. Richard Douglass.

Sponsored by the Oklahoma Arts Council, 16 individuals and five organizations will be honored for their contributions to the arts in their communities or throughout the state. The ceremony is scheduled for 4:00 p.m., Tuesday, October 20th in the 4th Floor Rotunda of the State Capitol and is open to the public. Presiding at the ceremony will be Council Chair Kym Koch Thompson and Oklahoma Arts Council Executive Director Suzanne Tate. A reception on the first floor of the Capitol will follow the 4 p.m. ceremony.

Jim Tolbert is the outgoing Chair of the Oklahoma Arts Council, having served two consecutive terms. He has served on the Council since 2003. A native Oklahoman with an extended civic, business and philanthropic career, Tolbert was named to the board of the Mid America Arts Alliance, a six-state regional organization, in 1989 and became Chair of the M-AAA board in 2004. He played a key role in the renovation of Oklahoma City’s Bricktown district and has been an influential force behind the state’s public education reform. In addition, he is the founder and owner of Full Circle Bookstore, Oklahoma’s largest independent bookstore.

Among the many honors and awards he has received are the first Executive Leadership Award from Oklahoma City University, the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Community Service from the College of Medicine Alumni, the Dean A. McGee Award and a Governor’s Arts Award.

He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and earned an MBA at Stanford University. He and his wife, Beth, were named Oklahoma’s Living Treasures by the Oklahoma Health Sciences Foundation.

A complete list of Governor’s Arts Awards recipients and their photos are available at www.arts.ok.gov. For more information about the Governor’s Arts Awards, please contact Ann Dee Lee at (405) 521-2931 or at anndee@arts.ok.gov.

ABOUT THE OKLAHOMA ARTS COUNCIL

The Oklahoma Arts Council is a state agency whose mission is to improve lives through the arts by promoting and sustaining the development of a thriving arts environment, which is essential to quality of life, education and economic vitality for all Oklahomans.

---End---