NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Sept. 25, 2008

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Ann Dee Lee
Public Information Director
Oklahoma Arts Council
(405) 521-2931
anndee@arts.ok.gov

ROY HAMILTON TO RECEIVE
GOVERNOR’S ARTS AWARD

Oklahoma City, OK -- Roy J. Hamilton, Stilwell, will be honored by Governor Brad Henry at the 33rd Annual Governor’s Arts Awards. Hamilton will receive a Community Service Award which recognizes individuals for significant contributions to the arts in specific Oklahoma communities in the areas of leadership and volunteerism.

Sponsored by the Oklahoma Arts Council, 15 individuals and three organizations will be honored for their contributions to the arts in their communities or throughout the state. The ceremony is scheduled for 4:00 p.m., Thursday, October 23rd in the 4th Floor Rotunda of the State Capitol and is open to the public. Presiding at the ceremony will be Council Chair Jim Tolbert and Oklahoma Arts Council Executive Director Suzanne Tate. A reception on the first floor of the Capitol will follow the 4 p.m. ceremony.

Hamilton is a true unali, or friend in Cherokee, to the people of Eastern Oklahoma. After retiring in 1999 from his work in marketing and other businesses, he started to look for ways to fulfill his lifetime goal, to give something back to Cherokee communities. Just this year, Hamilton has logged more 2000 volunteer hours with the Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill where he previously served as their president of volunteers.

His work led to the formation of the Cherokee Arts & Humanities Council where he began an educational outreach program which served over 4,800 people in its first six months after being organized. Hamilton currently serves as president of the Council and spends most of his time working in after school programs in rural Adair County schools that do not have an art program. Through the Council’s UNALI program, he introduced the Cherokee arts as well as storytelling, traditional dance, history and genealogy presentations to 5th through 8th grade children during the 2008 spring semester.

He also oversees other Council endeavors including a Community Cultural Project called Squirrel Ridge, an environmentally friendly and self supporting facility being built at a Cherokee Ceremonial Ground in the rural Kenwood community. The facility will bring access to the arts and programming to the local community as well as visitors to the area. He is helping develop and launch a digital media festival called Indigitronic in Tahlequah partnering with other arts organizations, the city of Tahlequah, the Cherokee Nation as well as other tribal governments and businesses. He has formed a film committee, a publishing committee, a basketry guild, a pottery guild, a culture and language society and maintains the Council’s website. He is also very involved in an ongoing cemetery preservation/restoration program as well as a Cherokee Culinary Arts Group. In November, 2001, he was given a lifetime membership in the Cherokee National Historical Society, Inc. and served as president of the Board of Trustees as well as interim executive director for one year.

This year, he was a member of the Oklahoma Arts Council’s inaugural class of Leadership Arts. Hamilton is also the author of Ned Christie, Cherokee Warrior about the Cherokee leader, patriot and hero of the late 1800s, who was also his second great uncle. He is also a Cherokee genealogist and historian and has taught the Cherokee Nation History Course in several communities including Stilwell, Muldrow, Sallisaw, and Kansas, Oklahoma.

A lifetime resident of the Wauhillau Community of Adair County, Hamilton graduated from Stilwell High School and then attended the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center with an Indian Youth Fellowship for two years. He then returned home to attend Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, to work on his Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication, and minored in marketing.

A complete list of Governor’s Arts Awards recipients and their photos are available at www.arts.ok.gov.

For more information, contact Ann Dee Lee, Public Relations Director, Oklahoma Arts Council, (405) 521-2931 or anndee@arts.ok.gov.

ABOUT THE OKLAHOMA ARTS COUNCIL

The Oklahoma Arts Council is a state agency whose mission is to improve lives through the arts by promoting and sustaining the development of a thriving arts environment, which is essential to quality of life, education and economic vitality for all Oklahomans.

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