Nominations open for PAC’s 2025 Stanley Lifetime Achievement Awards

WENATCHEE — The Numerica Performing Arts Center is now accepting nominations for the 2025 Stanley Lifetime Achievement Awards, created in 2002 to honor the late Bob Stanley’s lifelong commitment to arts and culture in North Central Washington. Stanley, a prominent Wenatchee businessman whose post-WWII surplus shop grew into Stan’s Merry Mart, made a $1 million gift to the Supporters of the Center, the nonprofit precursor to today’s Numerica PAC. Nominations are due by October 31, and the two awards (one volunteer, one professional) will be presented during Holiday Spice at the Numerica Festival of Trees in December.

Each year, the awards recognize two people whose long service has left “a profoundly positive and lasting impression” on the region’s arts community: A volunteer supporter/artist/musician, and a teacher or working arts professional with at least a decade in the field across Central Washington.

Past honorees illustrate the spirit of the program. In 2023, Matthew Pippin and Tom McNair were celebrated for sustained leadership in local theater and music — the sort of behind-the-scenes directing, coaching, and performing that keeps stages humming year after year. In 2010, veteran theater educator Sherry Schreck and acclaimed visual artist Jan Cook Mack were honored for shaping generations of creators — one through the classroom and community productions, the other through a body of work that helped define the valley’s visual arts landscape. And all the way back in 2003, Wilfred & Kathy Woods and Edward Sands were recognized for early, foundational support and advocacy that strengthened the region’s arts infrastructure and lifted opportunities for artists and audiences alike.

To nominate someone, review the criteria and submit forms via the Numerica PAC website. Full details, including eligibility, a full list of past honorees, and the nomination portal, are at the Stanley Awards page.

Key eligibility highlights

• Volunteer Division: lifelong arts supporter; at least 10 years volunteering in visual and/or performing arts within Central Washington; demonstrable, lasting community impact.
  
  
• Professional Division: artist/musician or arts educator working in Central Washington; at least 10 years as a professional; demonstrable, lasting community impact.

Again, the final deadline for nominations is October 31, and the awards will be presented during Holiday Spice at the Numerica Festival of Trees.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media