THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 5, 1995 TAG: 9511030055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
SINCE PLANET MUSIC opened in 1993, the Virginia Beach music store has promoted local performing arts through concerts, sales of CDs and other means.
For their good deeds, the store was given an ``Alli'' award for arts support on Wednesday.
Planet Music was among eight companies, media organizations and individuals honored by the Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads for outstanding arts support.
The sixth Hampton Roads Cultural Awards were presented at a luncheon at Marriott Waterside in downtown Norfolk. Norfolk humorist Hope Mihalap was the key speaker.
Other Alli award winners were:
Norfolk Southern Foundation of Norfolk, for major sponsorship of exhibitions at the Chrysler Museum of Art and other support.
WTKR-TV and Cox Communications, both of Norfolk, for airing public-service announcements that drew 163,500 visitors to the Virginia Living Museum for a dinosaur exhibit.
Warner Cable Communications of Hampton, for underwriting the broadcast on National Public Radio and WHRO-FM of Hampton Arts Commission's ``Great Performers Series.''
The Norfolk Delegation to the Virginia General Assembly, for increasing 1995-1996 funding for the Virginia Commission for the Arts by $100,000 - instead of making further cuts, as originally proposed.
Hampton Mayor James L. Eason, for making the arts and culture a key element in the revitalization of downtown Hampton.
Debra Burrell was given the Vianne B. Webb Award for continuous involvement in and enthusiasm for the cultural community. Currently arts coordinator with the Hampton Arts Commission, Burrell is a former administrator for the Cultural Alliance. She has been associated with many area groups, including Spectrum Puppets.
The award is named for Webb, a vice president of WHRO and a fine arts advocate who died in 1992.
The Alli awards were begun in 1987, with two goals - to express gratitude for support of local arts, and to spread the word about the economic impact of arts and culture on the region.
In 1987, a survey indicated that local cultural groups provided 2,450 jobs and paid $1.8 million in state taxes, Carlton Hardy, president of the Cultural Alliance, told the luncheon crowd.
A 1993 report showed growth, with groups providing 6,000 jobs and paying $3.8 million in state taxes.
Earlier this year, Winton Blount - speaker for the 1987 Alli awards - told a crowd in Washington, D.C., to consider the impact of funding cuts on the arts, Hardy said.
``If history is to be the judge of our achievement as a nation, what will it say about those who would determine that art was merely an indulgence of the wealthy, and should be available only to the wealthy; that the whole people did not need it, and ought to be denied it by reason of their means?'' Blount said.
``I was raised to believe . . . the proposition that a nation advances and grows strong by allocating its opportunities not to some of its people, but to all of them.'' by CNB