NATIONAL HERITAGE FELLOWS
From Maryland

The National Endowment for the Arts, a public agency that serves as the nation’s largest annual funder of the arts, honors several National Heritage Fellows each year. The fellowship program began in 1982 under the guidance of Bess Lomax Hawes, then director of the Folk Arts Program at the NEA, to pay tribute to the nation’s most passionate practitioners of traditional arts. Nominated by individual citizens and selected by a panel of cultural specialists, fellows from all over the country are invited to Washington D.C. to take part in a performance-celebration and to be presented with a prize of $25,000. In its 27-year history, the National Heritage Fellowships have become the most prestigious honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States. Today over 335 tradition bearers have been recognized for their commitment to their art form— sometimes facing great obstacles— and for their interest in furthering the traditional arts.