Remember back in February when Dallas was frozen and events were in meltdown mode? To say the frozen tundra was a frown maker is an understatement. For the first Dallas Festival of Ideas, they soldiered on and managed to still have speakers, entertainers and guests get together with the mission to help “shape the city of the future by igniting, uniting and energizing the people of Dallas through the power of ideas.”
Festival Co-Presenters The Dallas Morning News and The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture were so impressed with the presentation and the feedback that they not only signed up for a 2016 encore, but they ramped things up.
First of all, they brought on board Emily Hargrove to serve as executive director of the Festival. It made perfect sense, since Emily has been director of communications and development at the Institute and was instrumental in the Festival’s coordination. Having worked with both The Morning News team and the Institute’s staff, she’ll be right at home in the newly created position.
To provide leadership among the volunteers, Dallas Museum of Art Chairman Walter Elcock and OTSL’s Albert Black will serve as honorary co-chairs.
Another development is the expansion of the Festival’s present Steering Committee (Larry Allums, Alison Draper, Emily Hargrove and Thomas Huang) to include Nicole Fain, Ana Rodriquez, Ellen Williams, Russell Bellamy, John Matthews, Byron Sanders and Mike Wilson.
On Thursday, October 29, five working committees will present “progress reports” for the Festival slated to take place February 19-20.
Stay tuned. More developments are in the future. Understand that negotiations are underway with Mother Nature to cooperate come February.