Center fosters arts appreciation: Greater Latrobe School District / Pennsylvania.

To foster the arts in the Greater Latrobe School District, the Center for Student Creativity was constructed during recent renovations at the high school. School administrators and a foundation called the Art Conservation Trust worked together on the project.

The mission of the center is to help create a community of learners who, through the integration of arts into all aspects of curricular and extracurricular activities, will grow in knowledge and skills, realize more fully their potential, both academically and socially, and develop a lifelong desire to learn and create.

The campaign to raise funds for the center ran from 2001 to 2005. The effort exceeded its goal of $1.76 million. Contributions totaling $1.8 million came from local foundations, businesses and individual contributors. The school district allocated $550,000 to the building renovations to create the center, which can accommodate 200 people. The Center for Student Creativity and its programs resulted in the Greater Latrobe School District being named the Pennsylvania state winner in the 2007 National Civic Star Award competition.

Types of programs sponsored have included a poetry workshop, an artist-in-residence, a weeklong celebration of math and Albert Einstein's work, a student-produced Victorian ball and Renaissance world fair, music and dance performances and a film series.

The strong community appreciation for the arts dates back to the 1930, when an energetic, gifted art teacher, Mary Martha Himler, realized that art appreciation grew from skilled teaching and frequent exposure to fine works of art. The cost of transporting students from the Latrobe area, in southwestern Pennsylvania about 40 miles east of downtown Pittsburgh, to the art museums in Pittsburgh during the Depression was often prohibitive.

So Himler convinced the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and the Associated Artists Show to bring their works to the students. The works were admired by thousands of students and area residents at various events. Himler's dedication to the arts inspired others to carry on her work.

James R. Beatty, a social studies teacher and Student Council adviser at Greater Latrobe High during that same period, suggested to the Student Council that the members vote for their favorite paintings and raise money to buy them for the school. The first two works were purchased in 1936. After that, the voting on art works was extended to the entire student body.

The Art Conservation Trust has raised money through an annual art event and through donations to support various projects related to the collection.

For example, students saw the process of the collection being professionally preserved and conserved. A security system was also installed, and the collection was professionally photographed for documentation purposes.

The documentation process led to the publication in 1996 of a book that catalogued the collection.

The Center for Student Creativity's endowment supports some of the programs, and the center has received community grants from the Community Foundation of Westmoreland County, McFeely-Rogers Foundation, Commercial Bank and Trust of Pennsylvania and Laidlaw Inc. Programs have also been supported by numerous individual contributions.

For more information, contact Superintendent William D. Stavisky at [phone] or by e-mailing [e-mail]. His mailing address is Greater Latrobe School District, 410 Main St., Latrobe, PA 15650.