Hays arts advocate and former Kansas Arts Commission chairman Henry Schwaller IV has been voted Kansas Arts Advocate for 2012.

Schwaller is the first person to receive the award from Kansas Citizen for the Arts, an arts  advocacy organization founded in 1990.  Schwaller served as president last year.

The award was presented earlier this month at a reception in Topeka during Kansas Arts Day.  Last year, Kansas became the first state to eliminate its funding for the arts.

Kansas Citizens for the Arts is promoting bills in the House and Senate that would reorganize the Kansas Arts Commission.  It would be combined with the Kansas Film Commission, renamed the  Kansas Creative Economies Commission and housed in the Department of Commerce.

Find out more tonight on Street Beat Eagle Community TV Channel 14.