[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 130 (Tuesday, October 2, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1770]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         A TRIBUTE TO BILL IVEY

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                           HON. NITA M. LOWEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 2, 2001

  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in tribute to Bill Ivey upon 
the occasion of his departure from the National Endowment for the Arts. 
Chairman Ivey is an extraordinary leader, who transformed an agency 
battling for its very survival to one which has received increases in 
funding and ever-growing respect and acceptance. As a recent member of 
the National Council on the Arts, I had the distinct honor of working 
alongside Chairman Ivey, and I have seen first-hand the vision, 
dedication, and warm personal touch he has contributed to the arts 
community for more than thirty years.
  The NEA is not the first institution to have benefitted from Chairman 
Ivey's talents. Mr. Ivey was the first Endowment chairman to have 
developed and run a nonprofit cultural organization, serving as 
Director of the Country Music Foundation in Nashville, Tennessee for 
seventeen years. There, he forged valuable public-private partnerships, 
and created numerous outstanding programs. Chairman Ivey has chaired or 
served on fifteen different Endowment grant panels, and he served as an 
appointee to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
  The NEA will sorely miss Bill Ivey. Yet the under-served communities 
touched by his Challenge America Program, the thousands of artists, 
students, and teachers who will benefit from increased NEA funding, and 
those of us in Congress who have had the pleasure of working and 
fighting by his side will remain grateful for the service that Chairman 
Ivey has performed.

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