EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR NORTH LEAVING ARTS COUNCIL

Discovering artist/photographer Lou Varro, helping curate the Smithsonian Institution's first online exhibition and overseeing an explosion in the number of programs being offered by the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri are among the accomplishments Daniel North can count in a year and a half of leading the organization.

Friday will be North's last day as executive director of the Arts Council. He is leaving to become an elementary school art teacher in St. Louis.

A Poplar Bluff native, North began working at the Arts Council as an intern in January 1997, finishing his degree in studio art at Southeast that same year. After graduation, he served as assistant director under Greg Jones for a year and a half.

Leslie Stucker, who has been North's assistant director the past year and a half, also is leaving. In September, she will enroll as a graduate student in museum studies at the University of Newcastle on the Tyne in Newcastle, England. Stucker's position already has been filled by Laura Brothers, who was the assistant director of the Arts Council before resigning 3 1/2 years ago.

Finding Varro is North's favorite accomplishment during his tenure. The then-82-year-old Varro walked into the Arts Council to see an exhibit one day and began talking to North about drawing. North discovered that Varro had studied art seriously before going to work as a technical illustrator in the Southern California aerospace industry. After seeing Varro's work, North organized exhibitions of his drawings, paintings and photography that have been among the most popular the Arts Council has ever mounted.

Varro's work and that of photographer Bernard Mendoza are the Arts Council's contributions to the Smithsonian online exhibit North helped curate. He was the only arts council director among those chosen to participate in the project. The others were all museum directors.

Since North joined the Arts Council, the number of programs offered has jumped from 30 per year to more than 260. That is the primary reason the Arts Council was named the state model for community arts programming in December 1999.

The goal, he said, was to establish "more grass-roots programming. We allowed people in the community to see artists at work and works of art by both international and local artists and to make their own decisions, to decide on their own what they liked rather than being told what art is."

The nights and weekends of work that expansion required had something to do with North's decision to take a job that will allow him and his wife to work similar schedules. "Doing so many new programs and trying to establish the Arts Council on the lips of everyone in town has taken a lot of hours, a lot of weekends and evenings," he said.

North will teach art in downtown St. Louis at Jefferson Elementary School, a charter school that is the highest funded in the district. The school district will pay for him to complete his teaching certification while he works and also pay for him to attend graduate school.

North's wife, Sherri, will teach second grade at the Ames Visual and Performing Arts Magnet School in St. Louis. They have a 2-year-old daughter, Madeline.

The 25-year-old North said he leaves the Arts Council in a good position. "We've had a lot of transition and growth over the last three years. I think it's time now for the organization to work with the community to step forward and secure funding in a fashion that will keep community arts alive for years to come."

A search is under way for North's replacement with the goal of having a new executive director at work by Oct. 1. The first screening of candidates is scheduled for Aug. 20.