DawsonTimes.com

The Woodruff Arts Center is pleased to announce Chris Gore as one of four Woodruff Salutes Georgia Arts in Education Leaders honorees. Mr. Gore is an Art Teacher at Dawson County High School in Dawsonville, and his 30 year dedication to students and to improving children’s lives through the arts has earned him this recognition.

Through every challenge of space, time and money, Mr. Gore has provided stellar instruction for all types of students.  He specializes in helping those students who do not consider themselves artistic find and demonstrate their special talents and grow their individual passions for the arts. 

Mr. Gore runs his classes according to a very structured curriculum that includes specific objectives, large projects, and peer review.  Each semester culminates in the selection of the directors for the semi-annual high school art shows that his students put on each year.  These art shows are well known throughout the north Georgia community and are always well attended by people within and outside the local school.  Students organize the show with Mr. Gore’s guiding hand supporting them. 

Many of Mr. Gore’s students have gone on to SCAD and the Atlanta Art Institute.  He has been selected to be a STAR teacher, a rare selection for an art professional, and was instrumental in Dawson County’s adoption of a fine art credit requirement for graduation.  For his dedication to art in education, Chris Gore is a well deserving honoree of the 2008 Woodruff Salutes distinction. 

As one of four honorees, Mr. Gore will receive $2,500 to contribute to the arts program of his choice.  He will also be recognized with a reception at Dawson County High School, with Woodruff Arts Center campus displays, features in the January/February and March/April issues of Page One magazine, and with a culminating reception for all honorees to be held at the Woodruff on April 25, 2009.

Woodruff Salutes is a program designed to honor teachers, school and arts administrators, community leaders, and volunteers throughout Georgia who have championed and demonstrated the ability of the arts to impact positively the lives and learning of young people in grades PreK–12. More than 120 arts-in-education leaders were nominated from 48 Georgia counties. Honorees were selected by the Woodruff Arts Center Education Committee.

For more information about Woodruff Salutes, please visitwww.woodruffcenter.org.