state arts action network

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Sherron Long

Sherron is president and founder of Creating Executive Options Inc., a management and planning consulting business. She manages three statewide service organizations: the Florida Professional Theatres Association, which she created in 1981; the Florida Cultural Alliance, which she co-founded in 1983; and the Florida Association of Local Arts Agencies. Prior to Creating Executive Options in 1985, she developed the grants program for the Palm Beach County Cultural Council’s Tourist Development Cultural Activities Program and co-hosted and co-produced a weekly television show about the arts called Centerstage for WXEL-TV in West Palm Beach.

Sherron worked at the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs and Florida Arts Council (1978–1983) as an arts administrator, where she created and managed the State Touring Program. She initiated the first statewide Florida Dance Association summer dance festival and the first statewide conferences for local arts agencies, sponsors, and presenters. Sherron supervised the program section of the State Division of Cultural Affairs, responsible for music, theater, dance, visual arts, local arts agencies, and all other artistic disciplines represented by the division's programs. While at the division, she also coordinated two major projects: the first statewide arts conference in 1978 and the first statewide planning process for the arts (a pilot project sponsored by the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies), which resulted in the division’s first statewide plan for the arts—The Arts Blueprint.

Sherron was an onsite evaluator for the National Endowment for the Arts' Dance Program for seven years and served for two years as president of the State Arts Advocacy League of America, the former national organization for state arts advocacy organizations. She is also the past president of Arts for a Complete Education/Florida Alliance for Arts Education. Sherron is honored to have received the Florida Dance Association Nancy Smith Award in 1988; the South Florida Magazine Unsung Hero Award in 1990; the Florida ArtsPAC Cultural Advocacy Award in 1995; the Florida Department of State Arts Recognition Award, the ACE (Arts for a Complete Education) of Heart Award; and the Florida Theatre Conference Theatre Arts Advocacy Award in 2000. In 2004, Sherron received the Arts & Business Council of Miami Arts Advocate of the Year Award, the Carbonell Award’s George Abbott Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts, and the Florida Association for Theatre Education’s Outstanding Arts Advocate. In 2005, she received the Art Serve Individual Leadership Encore Award.

Sherron taught theater, speech, dance, and humanities at the high school and university levels and has directed and choreographed a number of productions in educational and professional settings. She has a B.A. in speech and drama from Valdosta State University and a M.F.A. in directing from Florida State University's School of Theatre.