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Show Festival of Arts for Youth SIGNS PROCLAMATION. Governor Scott Matheson signs proclamation while Walter Talbot, state board of education, left, and Connie Jo Garcia, right, and others look on. Over a quarter of a million Utah children will be engaged next month in proving that the arts are "basic to living" as part of the seventh annual Festival of the Arts for the Young. The Festival is a week-long, week-long, state-wide attempt to bring art into the lives of Utah's children - and their parents and communities. Largely participatory in nature, the Festival invloves almost every form of artistic endeavor from music and painting to less traditional forms. "This goal of the Festival," notes a planning brochure, "is to help Utah students, and Utahns in general, to be more aware of the role arts play in the quality of their lives." Thus the '78 theme: "The Arts -Basic to living." According to Rowan C. Stutz, state Festival coordinator, coor-dinator, last year's Festival involved "almost every school district." He estimated that "more than 250,000 students participated in the Festival activities last year," and he expects that even more will take part this year. The Festival is under the aegis of the State Board of Education, with the aid of the Utah Division of Fine Arts and the Alliance for Arts Education. Norma Matheson, wife of Governor Scott M. Matheson, is honarary chairman. Mr. Stutz said the Festival hopes to emphasize "the contribution that the arts make to the enrichment of living and to raising the general level of culture and conduct. We think, he added, "that it makes a contribution con-tribution to lowering vandalism van-dalism and other kinds of bad conduct on the part of kids. "In schools where they've introduced a lot of arts activities, vandalism nas gone down." The Festival, he said, "is for young, primarily elementary school children. But it involves all age groups - and hopefully the full in-vovement in-vovement of the community. |