The Cowan Community Action Group, Inc. has been notified that it is among the top 50 semi-finalists in the 2009 Coming Up Taller Awards by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and its partner agencies, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  The message read:  “We reviewed more than 420 nominations from 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Osan South Korean US Air Force Base.  Your program’s selection as one of the 50 semi-finalists distinguishes it as one of the top arts-and humanities-based programs in the country serving youth beyond the school hours.” 

The nomination is currently being rewiewed for a Coming Up Taller award by a national jury composed of field experts.  Recipients will be notified by the end of June.  If selected, Cowan will receive a plaque and a $10,000 award at a ceremony in the fall/winter.  Cowan will also have the opportunity to participate in the sixth annual Coming Up Taller Leadership Enhancement Conference, August 5-7, 2009, in Washington, DC.  The program and organization will be listed in this year’s Coming Up Taller awards national publication and in the press kit announcing the award recipients.

Cowan is very proud of this distinction, and recognizes it as an accomplishment to be shared by its stakeholders, Cowan Community Center Staff both past and present, the Cowan Creek Mountain Music Faculty and its many students throughout  the years, other organizations that have so closely worked with us as partners, such as Appalshop and the Cowan Elementary School,  and the many people of the area who believe as we do that our traditional mountain music and folk arts must be preserved and passed on to future generations.