The Troy-Pike Cultural Arts Center board of directors has announced the selection of Vicki Pritchett of Troy as the Center’s executive director.

“The board is excited to announce Vicki Pritchett as our new executive director,” said Mack Gibson, board chair. “She is exactly what we need for this position. We were looking for someone with administrative abilities and someone who has a love and an appreciation of the arts. Vicki met all of the criteria for doing this job.”

Gibson said the mission of the Troy-Pike Cultural Arts Center is to provide cultural enrichment to all citizens through education in and exposure to the arts.

“Vicki’s background and experience in the arts and as an educator will be invaluable as we move forward with our arts and educational programs including the Art Bridges program,” Gibson said. “She has innovative ideas for our educational and enrichment programs and for the cultural arts center. We are excited to begin to implement them.”

Pritchett said she never thought that she would marry a minister, but she did.

She never envisioned herself as executive director of a cultural arts center, but she is.

And she couldn’t be more appreciative of the opportunity or more excited about the possibilities.

“As a cultural arts center, we should embrace our culture,” Pritchett said. “We should embrace who we are, not just on canvas but in art, in music, in dance, in storytelling – in all of the arts. At the Johnson Center for the Arts, we want to embrace our culture and the people right here at home.”

In so doing, Pritchett said the foot traffic at the Johnson Center would increase.

“I can envision a wildlife exhibit here,” she said. “That would bring in people who probably have never been interested in coming before. If we have exhibitions of sports art and religious art, we are going to attract more people. We want to reach out from the Johnson Center to people with varied interest. We want to expand beyond 2D art with musical performances — gospel music and bluegrass music. We want to feature dance – ballet and clogging. We want to embrace our culture.”

Pritchett said there are people in Pike and surrounding counties “who don’t know we’re here.”

But as the Center reaches out to the community, those who don’t know the Center is there will soon found out.

“We want to increase the foot traffic at the Johnson Center but we also want to reach into the schools through our Art Bridges program,” Pritchett said. “We are going to take the Center to the schools.”

Pritchett said, through the Art Bridges workshops, teachers would have opportunities to write lesson plans that relate to the Common Core State Standards.

“We want to expand the teacher workshops to include middle school teachers as well as elementary teachers,” she said. “Art can be incorporated throughout the curriculum and we want to assist teachers with the many ways to use art in the classroom.”

Pritchett said studies have shown that students who participate in the arts have more confidence in themselves, greater self-esteem and a greater desire to continue in school and do better and be better.

Another goal that Pritchett has set is to increase the number of docents and volunteers at the Johnson Center for the Arts to assist with programs and workshops offered by the Troy-Pike Cultural Arts Center.

“I’m excited to be here and I’m looking forward to all the opportunities ahead,” Pritchett said. “I’ve got a great staff to work with in Wiley White, development coordinator, and Walter Black, exhibition coordinator, and a talented and progressive board of directors. I couldn’t be happier to be the executive director of the Troy-Pike Cultural Arts Center.”