ArtsQuest Foundation Announces Full List of 2024 Linny Awardees
Winners will be honored on November 7 at 5 p.m. in the Musikfest Café
Bethlehem, PA, July 15, 2024 – The ArtsQuest Foundation announces its complete list of 2024 Linny awardees. The Linny Awards are presented to distinguished individuals from the region for their longtime commitment and dedication to the arts. The 2024 Linny Awards will be held in the Musikfest Café in the ArtsQuest Center on November 7, starting with a cocktail hour featuring live music from 5 to 6 p.m. with dinner, awards, and festivities from 6 to 9 p.m.
“The Linny Awards is an opportunity to pause and celebrate those who make a difference in our community through the arts and education,” says Executive Director of the ArtsQuest Foundation, Selena Lavonier. “The Gala is an evening filled with artwork, performances, inspirational stories, food, drink and more. If you’re able, please join in the fun at the Linny Awards!”
The Full List of 2024 Linny Awardees is listed below:
Lifetime Achievement Award
Jeff Parks
Bethlehem, PA
Jeffrey A. Parks is an attorney, author and social entrepreneur known for his pioneering work in using arts strategies for community and economic development. To help his community deal with the ravages of deindustrialization, Parks conceived of a free music festival, Musikfest, as a vehicle to sustain Bethlehem’s downtown. Under Parks leadership, the festival, grew into a non-profit agency, ArtsQuest, and Musikfest is now the largest non-gated music festival in the country.
ArtsQuest also fostered the development of Christkindlmarkt, a holiday festival that sustained the community’s Christmas City brand, grew the city’s tourism market and contributed to the economic viability of a small downtown. ArtsQuest established the Banana Factory Arts Center in 1998 and in 2011 opened the 10-acre SteelStacks Arts and Culture Campus, a $90 million project at the base of the former Bethlehem Steel Blast Furnaces.
Parks retired as Chief Quest Officer of ArtsQuest in 2015 and remains an advocate for the importance of the arts in community development. Parks’ book Stronger than Steel, Forging a Rust Belt Renaissance, which chronicles the success of the strategies implemented in Bethlehem, was released in July 2018.
Parks served as the chair of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) from 2016 to 2024. In 2017, he became the Chief Operating Officer of Alibi Music, LP, a music publisher serving the global needs of multimedia storytellers for “Music to Back Up Your Story,” a business that is supported by over 400 composers, vocalists and musicians in over 20 countries. His great joy is working with his son, who founded this amazing media business.
Parks graduated from Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Laws School and resides in the Historic District of Bethlehem with his wife, Susan.
Philanthropy in the Arts Award
Laurie Hackett
Bethlehem, PA
Laurie Hackett, Air Product’s Director of Corporate and Community Relations, is actively and enthusiastically engaged as a volunteer and board member with many Lehigh Valley-based non-profits. In her role at Air Products and with the Air Products Foundation, Laurie works in Air Products communities to represent the Higher Purpose of the company and to advance Air Products and its colleagues as true champions of the communities they serve.
Celebrating and supporting the arts are priorities to Laurie. She has been a great champion of ArtsQuest in many ways, and proudly serves as an ambassador in honor of the positive impact and profound difference ArtsQuest continues to make in our community. Laurie hosts a popular NPR radio podcast on WDIY focused on the great work of Lehigh Valley non-profit leaders. She serves as vice chair of the boards of Miller-Keystone Blood Center, Century Promise, and the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. She is an active board member of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Valley Youth House, Greater Easton Development Partnership, United Way, and other non-profit organizations.
Laurie served as the first solo Chair of the 2022 United Way Campaign and raised a record $19.7 million for the Lehigh Valley community. She is the grateful recipient of the United Way Betsy Torrence Philanthropist of the Year Award, Chamber Athena Award and Girl Scouts Take the Lead Honor.
Business Supporter of the Arts
Service Electric Cable TV & Communications
Bethlehem, PA
Service Electric Cable TV & Communications is a third-generation family-owned communications company. SECTV was founded by John Walson, Sr. in 1948 following his discovery of the nation’s first community antenna television system, later known as cable television. His eldest son, John Walson Jr., took over the business in 1993, guiding the company for nearly 20 years and expanding its footprint both technologically and through his philanthropic efforts in the community. Picking up where his father left off, Service Electric and SEN are now under the direction of John M. Walson, who began his journey with the company as a teenager in 1990. Decades later, he continues to further his family’s mission to give back to the Lehigh Valley community while offering the best service, technology and TV coverage to SECTV’s loyal subscribers.
You’ll find SECTV crews on location for everything from high school football to Musikfest concerts, college basketball to Halloween parades, charity golf tournaments to professional hockey and Trible-A baseball. Service Electric is the exclusive television provider of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Lehigh Valley Phantoms, Valley Preferred Cycling Center and Musikfest. SECTV is a proud partner of EPC, Colonial League, District XI and PIAA athletics. The company also supports many local non-profits including Big Brothers Big Sisters Lehigh Valley, IronPigs Charities, Phantoms Charities, ArtsQuest, Valley Youth House, Easterseals, Cay Galgon Life House and more. Their flagship show, Lehigh Valley Sports Scene, airs weekdays at 6 p.m., featuring local sports highlights, community events and human-interest stories.
Visual Artist of the Year Award
Anthony Smith Jr.
Allentown, PA
Performing Artist of the Year Award
Dina Hall
Bethlehem, PA
Emerging Artist of the Year Award
Lilly Moss
Bethlehem, PA
Arts Educator of the Year Award
Daniel Zettlemoyer
Bethlehem, PA
Student Artist Scholarship Award
Sammy Wendland
Easton, PA
Volunteer of the Year Award
Roger & Dawn Cressman
Bethlehem, PA
Sponsorship Opportunities and Tickets are currently available for purchase at www.artsquestfoundation.org/linnyawards. Individual event tickets are $250.
Winners for this year’s award ceremony were selected by the ArtsQuest Foundation Board of Trustees, the ArtsQuest Board of Trustees, the ArtsQuest Performing Arts Board and Visual Arts Board.
About the Linny Awards
Named after the late Marlene ‘Linny’ Fowler, a stained-glass artist and community leader who supported artists and arts organizations throughout the Lehigh Valley for more than a quarter century, the Linny Awards are designed to recognize and celebrate the region’s flourishing arts community. The Linny’s are open to individuals living or working in Lehigh, Northampton, upper Bucks and upper Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania, as well as Warren County in New Jersey.
Proceeds from the Linny Awards go to support the nonprofit ArtsQuest Foundation, which Fowler helped found in 2003. The foundation is focused on supporting and strengthening the long-term sustainability of ArtsQuest, the nonprofit that presents Musikfest and more than 4,000 other programs, events and educational classes annually for our region.
For complete information on the ArtsQuest Foundation and the Linny Awards, please visit www.artsquestfoundation.org/linnyawards
