Louisiana 'culture champion' Atchison to speak at LSUS graduations

Louisiana 'culture champion' Atchison to speak at LSUS graduations

SHREVEPORT - A commencement speech is an invitation for graduates clad in caps and gowns to begin the next phase of their lives.

And LSUS commencement speaker Pam Atchison will dip into her fruitful four-and-a-half decades in the Northwest Louisiana arts world to provide perspective, inspiration and guidance.

She was appropriately named a 2026 Champion of Culture by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities for her impact in her 38 years as the executive director of the Shreveport Arts Council and 43 years of total service.

But when Atchison takes the stage at the LSUS graduations on May 15, she is also marking the occasion as an opportunity for herself after retiring from SRAC in 2025.

"This is humbling beyond anything I can explain - but this isn't a goodbye, I'm not done yet," said Atchison. "This is the beginning of the next chapter for me as well, an invitation to begin my next phase.

"All of the honors have been great, and I know it's a thank you for a job well done. But I'm not dead yet!"

Atchison hasn't really begun "retirement" yet - she's played an active role in planning SRAC's huge biennial fundraiser Christmas in the Sky, attends many arts events and offers her insight to local artists in promoting their work and bringing in more income.

She and her husband Bob did take the grandkids to Disney World, and she's made a point to travel to see art in places like Italy and Dallas.

But Atchison, who received the LSUS Circle of Excellence award in 2016, is considering volunteer roles and activities to continue to nourish a regional arts community which she's cherished for so long.

LSUS masters program played vital role

When Pam Atchison decided to pursue a master's degree with friend Shelly Ragle, now the director of Shreveport Parks and Recreation, she had already led one of the most consequential arts programs in the state for 20 years.

"I always assumed I'd get a master's degree, and both of my boys were moving on to pursue their doctoral degrees when (Ragle) and I decided to start," said Atchison, who graduated in 2003 with a master's in human services administration. "I thought with 20 years of administrative experience as an executive director, I thought I would CLEP some classes and basically just write my thesis.

"I was cocky, and I thought I knew it all."

What Atchison didn't know is the seemingly extreme case studies she was analyzing in classes taught by nonprofit staples like Norman Dolch and Mike Woods would create the foundation for her playbook at SRAC.

"I was learning about emergency management and public relations fiascos and how to conduct huge capital campaigns," Atchison said. "And then our building burned to the ground in 2009, and never in a million years did I think I would be doing a capital campaign to replace our building.

"I was reading books and writing papers on every single tragedy, like Founder's Syndrome in the board of directors, thinking, 'Come on, this isn't Survivor.' I'll tell you that there's not one chapter in that course that didn't come to fruition over the next 10 years or so. I believed I was far better equipped to handle those situations because of those LSUS classes."

The end result is the redesign of the historic downtown Central Fire Station as SRAC's new offices (Central ARTstation), which sparked a wave of organizations inhabiting downtown historic buildings.

Caddo Common Park is another SRAC creation under Atchison, a one-acre urban creative greenspace that transformed long-blighted areas on Texas Ave. that border the historic Ledbetter Heights neighborhood.

The Park anchors Shreveport Common, a nine-block urban arts community that includes Municipal Auditorium, the Strand Theatre and the Central ARTstation.

Atchison facilitated ArtBreak, the south's largest student arts festival that celebrated its 40^th anniversary this year. The festival was a response to severe state funding cuts for arts education.

All of these projects - and countless others -- require extensive relationships with communities, businesses, and governments, underpinned by successful grants and fundraisers.

"I was used to writing grants about why everyone must love the arts and that children need a way to express themselves," Atchison said. "But I learned how to write grants with actual data (at LSUS), where they approached grant writing from a scientific perspective.

"Now I used data about what children were doing without afterschool activities, and how the arts improved kids' ability to learn. It wasn't just about how art theoretically saves lives - now we had data."

Atchison was recognized as one of the most effective grant writers in the arts world with grant funding being an important cog in SRAC's $3 million annual operation.

'The arts saved my life'

Growing up in East Texas as the oldest of five children, Atchison handled difficult social situations by developing a penchant for comedic theatre roles.

"I'd rather have people laugh with me than at me - I was in charge of that laugh," said Atchison, who added long noses weren't exactly in style. "I grew up in a very conservative family that wouldn't hear of one curse word.

"I developed myself by playing characters all day long, and I did feel a certain freedom in my own house because of that."

Atchison recalls her favorite line from Lady Macbeth -- "Out damned spot, out I say!"

"I made it through high school that way," Atchison said. "The arts built my self-esteem, and it gave me a sense of hope because there was always another audition for another play.

"It's not an escape necessarily, but arts can allow you to deal head on with whatever you're facing. I can say that I am one of the ones where the arts saved my life."

That love led to a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Stephen F. Austin and eventually led to an artist-in-residence position with SRAC in the 1980s.

Now Atchison is proud to help foster an environment that nurtures Northwest Louisiana's artists.

"There's something about the Earth and the soil here," Atchison said. "You have the Lead Belly's and the Clementine Hunter's and Kenny Wayne Shepherd's, but then you have somebody like Zhailon Levingston who's a director on Broadway and has a hit production 'Cats: The Jellicle Ball.'

"SRAC isn't an organization that makes or creates art. We want to enhance the environment so that artists can discover themselves and have a chance to make a living in the arts."

And while Atchison may not have the official title anymore, she's far from done making an impact in the local arts community.