Franklin Mayor Jack Horton dropped into Shoney’s during Saturday’s Macon County Arts Council meeting to present two resolutions to the Arts Council for 50 years of operation and to Executive Director Bobbie Contino, who will soon be stepping back from the role after 40 years. Michael Contino, who is taking over the role for Bobbie, likewise presented his mother with a plaque recognizing her service to the council and to the arts community.
“Bobbie Contino has served as the executive director of the Arts Council of Macon County for 40 years … she has performed all of the duties associated with the organization including marketing, advertising, development and dissemination of the monthly newsletter and calendar,” the resolution read. “Bobbie has also coordinated the volunteer pool for all events including scheduling and assignments and … spearheaded the Artists in the Schools program and, at the library, the children’s programs.”
The council was formed in 1975 and Contino became involved just four years later in 1979 when Michael Contino, who was a freshman in high school at the time, was tapped to serve as a student representative to the council. Shortly after, Bobbie Contino became the council’s executive director and has served ever since.
Michael Contino said his mother has spent that time working on office duties, designing brochures, advertisements and other public-facing materials for the organization, as well as being in charge of most contracts with organizations and artist venues.
“She’s kind of been a one-person show,” Michael Contino said.
“She’s a fixture of our community in general,” said Nate Anderson, who has been a council member for about 25 years.
“She’s always cheerful, she’s always welcoming,” said Betsey Gooder, another long-time council member. “She is such an integral part of every program … she has had something to do with all of them.”
This devotion has even led to Contino hosting artists and performers at her own home at times, Anderson said, building a rapport with the artists that keeps them coming back because of the welcome they were shown.
Over the years, the arts landscape of Macon County has changed, Bobbie Contino said, as more and more organizations have developed and hosted programs and events for music, dance, cuisine and the visual arts. Rather than producing programs directly, Contino said she expects the council will spend the next 50 years helping these other nonprofits produce quality programing.
“We have learned that the county doesn’t need us to produce,” Bobbie Contino said. “Now we are in a position to back off as producers and step up and share and promote.”
The council has recently developed an arts hub calendar accessible through the Arts Council website, which lists various county-wide events coming up for locals to attend.
Bobbie Contino said the council will continue to host creative arts in schools – and is adding to existing programing – but will not develop original programs as frequently. This will allow the council to expand the scope of and increase community involvement in the arts.
“That’s always been her goal,” Gooder said.
“I have so much enjoyed my experience that I’m having trouble [stepping away],” Bobbie Contino said. She has long managed a wide variety of Arts Council duties, but will pass those duties on to several members, who are stepping up to shoulder the new responsibility. Bobbie Contino said it’s time to “let them move forward with their wonderful new ideas … our board is reinventing the Arts Council for the future.”
Michael Contino said that Bobbie Contino will continue to serve until the council’s 50th anniversary celebration in October, but he suspects that even after formally stepping down, she will continue to work on design and marketing, those being parts of the job that she especially enjoyed.