Part I: Life Falling Apart.
Part II: Carpet Pieces
Part III: Please, anything but hospitals!

It was in December of 1979 that my wife saw an advertisement in the Washington Post for an executive director of an arts organization in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Somerset County borders Johnstown, Pennsylvania and was most recently both the sight of the crash of heroic Flight 93 and the successful delivery of nine coal miners from the flooded Quecreek mine.

After carefully crafting my resume and filling it with references from local luminaries harvested through my teaching experiences, the call came to us for an interview. Upon arriving at the old building serving as the headquarters for this rural arts center, the search committee welcomed me into what had obviously been a bedroom.

Because my experience included no training or skills in arts management, it was easy for me to decide which of my interview skills to move to the forefront. It was my decision to make jokes with the committee.

When things began to look seriously like we were heading toward a second interview, it was obvious that we needed professional help. After some extensive exploration, a mentor and old friend floated back to the surface of my life. One of my college professors in both my graduate and undergraduate work was serving as the Director of the Arts for Pennsylvania. After one frantic and desparate call, he agreed to meet me in a Greek restaurant on the North Side of Pittsburgh. We ate gyros for three meals. We spent the better part of an entire Saturday discussing the answers to the questions that were sure to be posed by the committee at the second interview.

As they say on the streets, “we kicked ass and took names” at that interview. The other 137 candidates became fish food as the board elected me to head up a rural umbrella arts organization in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

It was 1980. Jimmy Carter had just left office and Ronald Reagan decided to eliminate funding for the arts wherever possible. Welcome to round two of “Reality Bites.”

Upon reaching the office for the first day of work on February 2, 1980 in my Johnny Carson three piece, polyester, brown suit, it was obvious that things were not quite the same as had been portrayed to me by my search committee friends. The 66 year old semi-volunteer secretary informed me that it was my responsibility to fire up the wood burner. She also informed me, “All of our money was spent on advertisements for this job in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times. We’re broke.”

It wasn’t clear how totally correct she was until Price Waterhouse completed the very first audit ever a month or so later and informed me that they had good new and bad news. The good news was that there was $2500 left in our accounts. The bad news was that the audit had cost $2600.

It was clear, however, that the right side of my brain, the creative side, would be my only salvation. Creativity was always my strong suit. When it was clear to me that payroll was going to be a problem, my first thought was transportation. In short, if you have a truck in Somerset County, you can find money.

The only problem at that time was that we hadn’t been in the job long enough to make plans. At 33 years of age, in a small town where you have just been named head of a nonprofit umbrella arts organization, saving face was important and collecting enough money to pay salaries became the first order of business.

We needed money, and one of my board members and later my board chairman was the President of a local bank. It did not seem feasible that anyone would just provide money to me, the new guy. He did have a repossessed truck in his parking lot that always burst into flames upon ignition.

This very generous man and his very generous bank donated that fire (making) truck to the art center. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare provided us with two employees to man the vehicle.

The new director of art center (i.e. yours truly) instructed them to follow carpet trucks. That’s right, carpet trucks. Each time the truck stopped at someone’s home to deliver and install new carpeting, we asked to have the old carpet donated to the art center for a tax deduction. Then on Saturday night at the local auction barn, the carpet was sold, and we made payroll until our new plans to become the leading rural arts presenting organization in Pennsylvania took hold.

This practice only went on for a few months. During that time we had bricks and labor donated to replace the front steps. We found an artist who painted acrylic portraits of athletes, and in a rural, farming/mining community, that was art. We planned a German beer festival with cotton candy and some more art. We offered dog training classes. We built a room that was made from scraps from the Coleman Trailer Company that was just like a cloud. Nearly 2000 people visited that room over nine months. We discovered something called “goof” at the paint store, paint that was mixed incorrectly. For a dollar a can that became our new look in the galleries.

The real change came when one day a young ad man between jobs made an offer to help me tell the story. He made a slide show that was all about my dreams. We never indicated that any of it was true or that it was a dream. Within two years we had made presentations to over 163 groups and organizations and had grown into one of the largest rural arts organizations east of the Mississippi. Our membership grew from 300 to 3000, and we were working with every school district in the County. We had 125 arts classes running in six different locations, had 10 gallery shows, two festivals and a dozen concerts each year. Things were really starting to click into gear.