West Plains Council on the Arts (WPCA) has been awarded a grant in the amount of $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support the development of an arts and culture trail in West Plains, Missouri.
“We’re grateful to NEA for their support of our Ozarks Deep Art and Culture Trails and look forward to providing a product that will help promote West Plains and the Ozark Highlands through virtual and future in-person tours,” says WPCA Administrator Paula Speraneo.
“Using the concept of cultural trails, we will develop an arts and culture trail based in West Plains, Missouri, combining successful, sustainable projects with new resources to expand the cultural tourism capacity of the Ozarks region and enhance the vitality of our own community through the arts. The Ozarks Deep Art and Culture Trail will allow the city and regional organizations to promote current assets and be a gateway for future cultural journeys,” says board member and project coordinator Kathleen Morrissey.
“Although the Trails Project is a new stand-alone program, it will be initiated using the Old-Time Music, Ozark Heritage Festival’s ‘West Plains Tour’ as it has become known, to create the first trail: The Story Trail where the community stories link with artistic traditions passed down generations, to turn a place into a destination, an experience, for both local residents and visitors as well.”
The NEA grant will complement the monies received from the West Plains Tourism Grant funding to feature traditional artists and enlarge the cultural trails project.
