Nominate District residents whose leadership has made a significant impact on the arts, scientific and cultural community in the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District.

Nomination forms are due to SCFD by September 15, 2010

About the Rex Morgan Award: Honoring an SCFD Founder, Rex Morgan, by Recognizing Contemporary Citizen Volunteers.

The Rex Morgan Citizen Volunteer Award was initiated in 1998 to thank citizen volunteers and inspire participation in civic advocacy on behalf of culture. It honors District residents whose leadership has made a significant impact on the arts, scientific and cultural community in the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District. Recipients have met one or more of these additional criteria: advocated on behalf of the cultural community; demonstrated vision and persistence in pursuing goals to benefit the cultural community; promoted community participation in pursuing cultural objectives; worked as a volunteer supporting cultural initiatives or institutions; acted to benefit a municipality or county region[s]; initiated, collaborated, or supported innovative policies to enhance the regional cultural community.  

Mr. Rex Morgan served as a leader, volunteer, and advocate who pursued a regional vision, SCFD, that was inclusive and for the benefit of the cultural community and the residents of the metropolitan area.  Mr. Morgan worked tirelessly, persisting over a number of years enlisting the help and expertise of others and used his talents, energy, community contacts, and knowledge of the legislative process to make SCFD a reality.  His work has benefited organizations in the arts, sciences, and cultural history for two decades. Rex Morgan was a civic activist and trustee of the Denver Art Museum. His vision was to create a thriving cultural community for all citizens. During the 1980s, Rex Morgan and other community leaders lobbied the legislature, organized the original SCFD ballot initiative and championed implementation of the 0.1% retail sales and use tax.

REX MORGAN TRIBUTE

The selection committee serving the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) for its future SCFD Rex Morgan Tribute is pleased to announce the selection of Patrick Marold’s concept for a site-specific sculpture, to be installed at the Denver Performing Arts Complex at 14th and Curtis Streets in downtown Denver. This artwork will serve as a permanent three way tribute to the citizens who comprise the SCFD, Rex Morgan, one of its founders, and the annually-named growing list of recipients of the Rex Morgan Citizen Volunteer Award. Installation is planned for fall of 2010.

Mr. Marold’s proposal was selected from a pool of many wonderful entries from Colorado artists. His work in multiple media can be found in public places throughout metro Denver and the country.  Mr. Marold’s artistic concept for the Tribute was presented in an open air ceremony at the future installation site on the Galleria at the Arts Complex on Monday, November 16, 2009, directly prior to the Rex Morgan Citizen Volunteer Award reception.

Citizens for Arts to Zoo (CATZ), a support group for SCFD is playing an instrumental role in this endeavor by spearheading fundraising of public donations to make the Tribute possible. An all inclusive budget for the Tribute has been set at $50,000 and CATZ chairman, Harry Lewis, remarked recently, “Many civic leaders, not only from the cultural community, but from the foundation community and others are embracing this endeavor with significant pledges of support which will allow us to provide the citizens with a significant work of art to enjoy on a daily basis. It will also remind them of the wonderful enhancements SCFD has brought to the community over twenty years.” The list of major donors to date includes: individuals from the boards of directors along with organizations such as the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Denver Zoo, the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Denver Botanic Gardens. Additional support is being provided by the Boettcher Foundation, The Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado, The Denver Foundation, The El Pomar Foundation and the Publishing House as well as from many individuals in the community whose generosity is making the Tribute possible.

REX MORGAN TRIBUTE and AWARD   DONORS and PLEDGES

Sustaining Gifts $2,500 and Up
The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities
The Boettcher Foundation      
The Denver Foundation
El Pomar Foundation
The Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science
The Denver Zoo
The Denver Art Museum
The Denver Center for the Performing Arts
The Denver Botanic Gardens

Leadership Gifts $1,000 and up
Colorado Chautauqua Association
Mary Giddings Cronin – The Piton Foundation
Wilbur Flachman – The Publishing House
Harry T. Lewis, Jr.
Mike and Ann Moore
Robert Rich
Pat Grant
The Wildlife Experience
           
Patron Gifts $500 and up
Floyd and KK Ciruli
John and Carolee Hayes
Dennis Humphries
Holly Osgood (in honor of her mother, Mrs. Hodges)
Nancy S. Parker
Colorado Children's Chorale
Colorado Railroad Museum
Denver Film Society
Scientic and Cultural Collaborative
TASHCO
           
Friends $100 and up
Mark Addison                                             
Joe Arcese
Cappi Morgan Black                                   
Ellie Caukins                                     
Walt Downing and Peg Long                       
Bob Grant                                         
Robert Greenlee
Frederic Hamilton Family Foundation                                           
James Harrington
Arlene and Barry Hirschfeld                             
Marcia and Will Johnson  
Deborah Jordy                            
Lakewood Heritage Culture & the Arts           
James Martin                                              
Jan Mayer  
Katherine Dines and David Miller                                        
Mizel Arts and Cultural Center                    
David J. Montez (and a match from the Gill Foundation)                                 
Caroline Morgan                                        
Peter Morgan                                   
Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory            
Gully Stanford                      
Kathleen Stapleton
Steve Wilson                                     

Community and In-kind Support
Jerry Endsley/Denver Municipal Band     
The Spirituals Project
Hank Troy /The Harmony Project            
Scott Beach /Colorado Bagpipers
CENTERPLATE     
Kevin Taylor Catering  
Rodney & Donna Smith
Jane Potts
Stick-e-star Cakes                                         
Paul Docktor Namaste Photography
Lora Knowlton                                             
Ruth Bruno
Caren Voeller

Thank you to all who are making pledges and donations. This list will be updated regularly. Please contact SCFD if you are interested in making a pledge today!

Past Recipients of the Rex Morgan Citizen Volunteer Award:

2008: Bob Greenlee, first Chairperson, SCFD Board of Directors
2007: Maruca Salazar, former member of Denver County Cultural Council and a long standing advocate for Chicano artists
2006: John E Hayes, former Chairman for the SCFD
2005: Mike Moore, founding member and former Chairman of Jefferson County Cultural Council, founding member of Denver Friends of Folk Music and The Baroque Folk, former director of the Evergreen Arts Council, former trustee of the Colorado Children's Chorale
2004: Rosalie Keith, former Adams County Cultural Council Member and Founder of Thornton Arts Science and Humanities Council Young Artists Festival
2003: Edward P. Connors, Trustee, Denver Botanic Gardens
2002: A. Barry and Arlene Hirschfeld, Trustees, Denver Art Museum
2001: Harry T. Lewis, Trustee, Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Chairman of Citizens for Arts to Zoo
2000: Wilbur Flachman, Adams County Cultural Council Chairman
1999: Jane Hansberry, former District Administrator, SCFD
1998: Nancy Parker, Trustee, Central City Opera

2009 Rex Morgan Citizen Volunteer Award

Gully Stanford was be presented this award by the SCFD Board of Directors at a reception on Monday, November 16, 2009 at the Chambers Grant Salon in the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Congratulations to the Nominees for the The Rex Morgan Citizen Volunteer Award, Judy Mecaller, Alice Montague, Dorothy Safford, Collen Sawyer, Barbara Scripps, Linda Stevinson, Kathryn Shuhler, Carl Wells and Jane Wilson.


A 20/20 hindsight perspective on the SCFD
Speech of Gully Stanford, 2009 Recipient of the SCFD’s Rex Morgan Award
Delivered November 16, 2009

Newcomers to Denver are perhaps unaware of the seismic impact that passage of the SCFD (the Polar Bear Tax) in 1988 had on the mile high city’s cultural quality of life. This 1/10th of a cent sales tax (1 cent on every $10 purchase) now generates over $30 million a year, and has – over 20 years -  invested over half a billion dollars in over 300 scientific, historical and cultural organizations in Metro Denver’s 7-county region.
Reauthorized by popular vote in 2006, the District will next come up for a vote in 2018. Meanwhile, Gully Stanford, veteran of 4 SCFD campaigns and former Public Affairs Director at the DCPA, recently offered some thoughts on the significance of the SCFD at a gathering to celebrate its 20th year and to honor the memory of its principal advocate, Rex Morgan.

Its significance: It’s not just the money, though half a billion dollars has nurtured and fostered an otherwise unthinkable level of excellence, diversity and accessibility, and ensured the emergence and  survival of vibrant, professional organizations.
Two key developments have been

• The image of Metro Denver, and thus of Colorado, as a place where creativity flourishes, where the arts are healthy and adventurous, where every resident, regardless of socio-economic status, can enjoy the best that museums, theatres and symphonies can offer. Wellington Webb coined the phrase “Athens on the Platte” – whether it’s that, or Paris on the Platte or Queen City of the Plains, Denver has come of age culturally thanks to the SCFD.
• Awareness, cooperation and collaboration: where once the “culturals” fought each other (often to the death) over scraps of public sector subsidies, that Balkanization has been replaced by a universal awareness of the diversity of cultural offerings across 7 counties and collaborations such as the Tier II Community Awareness Partnership, with pooled resources and shared mailing lists and strategic marketing and educational collaboratives…the envy of communities from across the nation.

Essential components of a successful campaign:

• First and foremost the Champion – Rex Morgan was the captain  of a “Bounty” which brooked no mutiny. Had he not existed, we would have had to invent him…luckily for us, he did exist and was determined to succeed!
• The Volunteers – they read like a Who’s Who of 20th century Denver, from patricians like Charles Gates, Bill Gossard and Don Seawell to hard-working arts managers like Anthony Radich, Robert Salisbury and Greg Geissler, a vast army of volunteers lobbied, worked and gave tirelessly and generously. Their passion was exemplified by the ubiquitous presence of pins with 2 pennies glued on (representing the 2 pennies a day which the tax would cost the average citizen), thought by some to have been manufactured – Betsy Ross-like – by Rex’s good-humored widow Carolyn!
• A professional  approach – “taking the cause as seriously as we wished the voters to take it” – with master-tacticians like Floyd Ciruli, this campaign was totally professional, from a serious campaign war-chest, to relentless polling, to firmly disciplined messaging…and the sonorous cadences of Raymond Burr, who donated the commentary for the campaign video…some 50 years after he starred as a youth in summer stock at Elitch’s Theatre.

The challenge of the 21st Century. We cannot rest on the generous laurels provided by the district’s taxpayers. The SCFD must lead, must create, must innovate, hewing to its core mantra of “excellence, diversity and accessibility”. In Denver, 2009, that means two major thrusts:

• Creative Economy: the Colorado Council on the Arts, www.coloarts.org ,a division of the state’s Economic Development Office, has published a study of Colorado’s Creative Economy, identifying over 186,000 full time equivalent positions in creative industries, making the cultural sector the 5th largest categorical employer in the state. As we speak, the Lieutenant Governor has convened a task force to explore how Colorado can nurture the health of this vibrant and diverse sector.
• Creative Education: A creative economy and 21st Century professional skills require an educational system which nurtures students’ artistic, creative, communicative, individual and collective talents – in a word, we must restore a thorough and uniform arts education for Colorado’s students. The cost of failing to do so is best summed up by Denver’s Poet Lalo Delgado, who wrote:

Remember that Chicanito flunking math and English?
He is the Picasso of your western states.
But he will die
With one thousand masterpieces
Hanging only from his mind.
As we speak, House Education Chairman Michael Merrifield, is preparing a bill entitled “Concerning Creativity in Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness” which promises to promote arts education. There are many other ways, both regionally and locally, to support arts in our schools, our colleges and in the education departments of our great cultural institutions, to build a pipeline of talent and energy to meet the demands of a 21st century economy. There are ample voices and reports making the undeniable case – Daniel Pink, Richard Florida, Kenneth Kay.
The SCFD and its patrons must do more than attend and applaud. We must participate, protect and promote; we must, every day, earn the ongoing support of our taxpayers, and prove the foresight of our first president, George Washington, who anticipated the tremendous interplay of economic development and quality of life, when he said:
“The arts and sciences, essential to the prosperity of the state and the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind”.
Gully Stanford is Director of Partnerships at College In Colorado, an initiative of the Colorado Department of Higher Education and formerly Associate Vice-President and Director of Public Affairs at the DCPA.