Shreveport Regional Arts Council executive director recalls her journey as she nears retirement

A Shreveport icon has been working in six-month increments since 1986, and her retirement is no exception.

Pam Atchison, executive director of the Shreveport Regional Arts Council, will retire from the arts council at the end of the year but has made her transition into her new role as the director of Christmas in the Sky.

SRAC has named Rebecca Bonnevier as the new executive director.

"In six months, we'll have Christmas in the Sky, and I'll be out," Atchison said. "I live my life in six-month increments. I think that's why I've stayed so long."

More: What’s the theme for Shreveport Regional Arts Council’s 2024 Christmas in the Sky? Find out

For the past 38 years, Atchison has served as the executive director of SRAC and has been a visionary and trailblazer for the arts in northwest Louisiana. During her tenure, she created ArtBreak, reimagined the Texas Street Bridge and helped create a thriving arts community in downtown Shreveport.

The SRAC we know today was not the same when Atchison began working for it in the early '80s as a theatre artist in residence.

Today, SRAC is a $3 million a year organization, but in 1986 it was struggling to keep its doors open when Atchison and Chairman Sandi Kallenberg launched the Dinosaur Campaign. This campaign raised almost $300,000 in just six months and was used to rebirth the organization.

Atchison said she remembers the day that campaign was launched because Kallenberg came into the one roomed office at Princess Park and plopped down a plastic dinosaur and said the arts cannot become extinct.

"That has carried me," said Atchison. "I truly believe that the arts save lives, and I don't say it tritely, I have seen so many people who don't have a way to communicate, and sometimes they resort to violence or to, I think worse to isolation and the arts may get created in isolation. However, they must be exhibited in public."

That motto has kept Atchison going because in 2009, the Princess Park SRAC location was destroyed during an act of arson. "I didn't think we were going to make it for another six months," Atchison said.

Her fears were diminished when the City of Shreveport stepped up and showed the true importance of the arts in northwest Louisiana.

"The fire was from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.," she said. "The next morning at 8:30 a.m. every one of us had an office at Expo Hall... we all had flowers on our desk."

She continued by saying, "I tell you this work has been so rewarding and amazing."

In 2009, Mayor Cedric Glover turned a crisis into and opportunity and declared that the tragedy of the fire would lead to “...a new day for the arts.”

Within months of the fire, the City of Shreveport designated the 1922 Central Fire Station to SRAC. More than 25 private donors contributed nearly 70% of the $6 million raised to renovate and re-purpose the historic Central Artstation.

Today SRAC calls the Central Artstation home and runs Artspace and Caddo Common Parks.

"We have had a solid base of support, but we are a responsive organization," Atchison said. "We don't just sit in a corner and think, 'Oh, what could we do next?' It's where's the community need."

Read: Shreveport Regional Arts Council Executive Director is retiring. Here's what you need to know

Makenzie Boucher is a reporter with the Shreveport Times. Contact her at mboucher@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Shreveport Regional Arts Council director Pam Atchison set to retire