Author, professor and Baptist minister Michael Eric Dyson will be the keynote speaker at this year's Governor's Awards for the Arts Luncheon. Dyson's books have gained wide critical and public acclaim. His 1993 debut, Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism, won the Gustavus Myers Center for Human Rights Award in 1994. His follow-up, Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, was named a Notable Book of 1994 by The New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dyson has written for many publications, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, VIBE magazine and Rolling Stone, and won the 1992 Award of Excellence for Magazines from the National Association of Black Journalists. He has been profiled in Time magazine, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, The New Yorker, Essence, The Village Voice and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His commentary on American culture has landed him on Nightline, The Charlie Rose Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Oprah, BET and NPR.

Dyson is the Ida B. Wells Barnett University Professor at DePaul University. Last year he was a visiting distinguished professor of African America studies at Columbia University.

The 2000 Governor's Awards will be presented at a luncheon hosted by the Ohio Arts Council and Ohio Citizens for the Arts Foundation honoring award recipients and Ohio's legislators, Wednesday, March 22, noon to 1:30 p.m. at The Columbus Athenaeum, 32 North Fourth Street. Governor Bob Taft is scheduled to give the welcome. If you have not received an invitation call Lucy Spurgeon at 614/466-2613.

WINNERS OF THE 2000 GOVERNOR'S AWARDS FOR THE ARTS

Arts Administration
Sister Sheila Shea, Sylvania

Arts in Education
E. Richard Shoup and Jerry Tollifson, Columbus

Arts Outreach
Akron Symphony Orchestra

Arts Patrons
Paul J. Bartel, Cincinnati Dr. Stanley and Mickey Kaplan, Cincinnati

Business Support of the Arts
Dana Corporation, Toledo

Individual Artist
Charles Csuri, Columbus

Partnerships in the Arts Kaiser Permanente, Cleveland

Irma Lazarus Award Robert P. Bergman, former director of The Cleveland Museum of Art, posthumous