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The Tobacco Valley is home to an array of cultural events that help to enhance what our community offers to tourists, potential residents as well as local citizens. The Valley has a number of civic based organizations working towards preserving our rich history, providing venues for cultural activities, brining in arts and cultural based activities/classes and other cultural experiences.
The Sunburst Foundation has been a leading force with their commitment to increase arts and cultural experiences in the communities. Annual the Foundation organizes a performing arts series, a diversity-lecture series, hosts live theater events including Shakespeare in the park and Missoula Children's Theater. Sunburst sponsors a chainsaw carving festival that combines wood-related arts and live music, as well as organizes a variety of continuing education and arts-related classes. Whenever visiting artist makes the trip to Eureka to perform the time is spent in the schools as well as in the communities. |
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The Tobacco Valley Improvement Association (TVIA) sponsors two boards; Board of History and the Board of Arts. The Board of History oversees the Tobacco Valley Historical Village. The Historical village remains a center for community activities and events such as the Rendezvous and the Farmer's Market. The Village also is where the Eureka Chamber of Commerce's newer Visitor Information Center is located. The Board of History is dedicating to preserving the Tobacco Valley history and has a fine display of artifacts and buildings. They struggle to keep up maintenance to buildings as they operate purely on donations.
The Board of Arts' main project is the Creative Arts Center. They provide after school classes in dance, visual arts and drama. Their programs offer students an opportunity to explore the arts while developing confidence, self-esteem and leadership skills. The Creative Arts Center not only provides quality classes, but also extends the arts into the Tobacco Valley with recitals, plays and other artistic endeavors. The Creative Arts Center has been dedicated to expanding their building to allow for more usage. Last year they were successful at obtaining a Murdock Foundation Grant and they have an outstanding capital campaign.
A great addition to the community was the completion of the Lincoln County High School in 2004. Within most communities the size of Eureka, the school system normally becomes the hub of activities. The past six years it's been a goal of the School District to uphold this expectation. The New High School was built with the concept of being a community school.
The unique design allows a variety of functions to occur simultaneously if necessary. For example during one ten day span it was used to hold an InterBel Stockholders meeting, a high school music concert, three consecutive days of a high school play, a full day of little guy wrestling, ending with an important city council meeting. The 1600 seat gymnasium lends itself to hold high school district and divisional tournaments as well as weekly adult competition. Many adult classes are held throughout the school building throughout the year. During the summer and weekends most classrooms are used for various resources. A weekend quilting event will bring in a couple thousand quilters, which include instruction and displays. Hunter safety courses, boy scouts and girl scouts, and community meetings are held throughout all building of the School District.
Located in the High School is the Eureka Auditorium, a 485 seat facility. A local committee of private residents has been working diligently on raising funds to enhance the Auditorium. They were successful in receiving a Plum Creek Foundation grant matched by Lincoln Electric and InterBel Telephone Cooperative to install a large screen and projector system. The Auditorium has become a central location to host events, public meetings, club and organizational meetings, presentations, plays, concerts and a number of other events. The Eureka Montana Quilt Show hosted a signing quilter concert in the Auditorium their first year.
The School with the help of InterBel Cooperative enhanced our Vision Net Center that allows high school students and community adults to enroll in instructional classes from the Flathead Community College and the Lincoln County Campus. This gives our public an advantage of gaining college credit without leaving the area. This I TV concept also allows city and county officials or any other members of the public to attend meetings via vision net. This is a huge asset to the communities in the Tobacco Valley.
The Lincoln County High School is now in the process of establishing a student builders program. Under the guidance and support of the Flathead Builders Association, the group is developing a Eureka Chapter to help high school and college aged student to build actual houses. This will provide our industrial art students a head start in obtaining an apprenticeship towards developing a career in the construction arena. This program also addresses concern that the Valley has limited workforce.
The Lincoln County Fairgrounds is another great venue for organizations and residents to host events in. The Fair Board has begun a Capital Improvement Plan to make additions and updates to their facility in order to serve the Valley and all of Lincoln County better. Some of the concepts that the Fair Board is looking into extend over to the TVCDC Business Development and BEAR committees as the Fair Board is looking at installing a commercial incubator kitchen. This would also allow for a variety of events to take place at the fairgrounds as well as help the fairgrounds to become an emergency center/evacuation shelter for the Community. The Fair Board plans on completing their Capital Improvement Plan by summer of 2007 and will then begin a capital funding campaign.
Other concerns and opportunities for the Arts/Cultural and Education Committee
are:
- Funding to maintain and upgrade facilities
- Maintenance on current community facilities and the Historical Village
- Hard work with little financial support
- Older volunteer base with little interest from the younger generations
- Work with BEAR program and committee to develop workforce training classes based on businesses actual needs
- Develop more business training classes that address specific issues
- Approaching retirement of teachers
- Work with Housing committee to attract younger teachers to the area
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