Nine Alaskans have been selected to receive the 2017 Governor's Awards for the Arts and Humanities at a gala in Juneau on Jan. 26. They are:
-Robert Banghart of Juneau, for distinguished service to the humanities
-Marilyn Davidson of Kodiak, for arts education
-Charlotte Fox of Anchorage, for lifetime achievement in the arts
-Lani Hotch of Klukwan, for arts business leadership
-Kathleen Carlo Kendall of Fairbanks, for Alaska Native arts
-Heather Lende of Haines, for distinguished service to the humanities
-Lance Petersen of Homer, for individual artist
-Robert Sparks of Kenai, for Alaska studies educator of the year
-Shirley Mae Springer Staten of Anchorage, for distinguished service to the humanities
Banghart is the Deputy Director of the State Libraries, Archives and Museums. Fox is the former executive director of the Alaska State Council on the Arts. Kendall has built a reputation as a contemporary artist who uses Alaska Native motifs and forms.
Lende is an author known to readers of the Alaska Dispatch News for numerous columns and articles published in this newspaper. Petersen and Staten are best known as performers.
Hotch was in the forefront of a monumental community effort to create a world-class center in the small Southeast village of Klukwan where the Whale House Totems, perhaps the most important works of art ever created in Alaska, can now be seen.