The Lower Alabama Arts Coalition (LAAC), in conjunction with the Andalusia Area Chamber of Commerce, has announced that it will present the 2012 Golden Palette Award to Andalusia High School. The award will be presented during the annual Chamber banquet this Thursday.

The Gold Palette Award recognizes individuals and businesses who promote and support the visual and performing arts.

LAAC president Paula Sue Duebelt said principal Dr. Daniel Shakespeare, and faculty and staff members of AHS do a great job of supporting all of the arts, despite many challenges.

This support is visible to anyone who walks the halls of AHS, Duebelt said, thanks to the efforts of art teacher and SGA sponsor Joanie Brannon and the SGA. Each year, the SGA purchases prints of famous works to be displayed at the school.

“More than 50 works now hang in the halls, featuring artists, such as  Picasso, Monet, da Vinci,  van Gogh, and many others,” Duebelt said.

The AHS curriculum promotes arts by giving students opportunities to participate in chorus, art, band, and theatre, she said.

And even those students who don’t enroll in arts classes are still exposed to art, Duebelt said.

“The core classes also emphasize art,” she said. “For example, geometry students had to find over 150 shapes in artwork and architecture. History students researched various decades and created multi-media visual aids. Freshmen English students created digital presentations, based on the theme ‘Our Town.’

“The agri-science classes focus on improving the appearance of the campus, and the family consumer science classes teach fashion and provide refreshments for school events,” Duebelt said. “These are just a few of the many assignments that combine required subject matter and the arts.”

The school also advances the arts through extra-curricular activities, including field trips to museums, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and other cultural events. Last spring, the Literary Club hosted a book signing for former Alabama First Lady Patsy Riley at Springdale.

Pride Day, talent shows, the school yearbook and commencement exercises also showcase visual and performing arts, Duebelt said.

AHS also has partnered with the LAAC for several activities over the past years, Duebelt said, including hosting “A Storyteller in the House,” and a political cartooning project. Each project called on students to produce creative work which was in turn showcased by the LAAC.