Veteran State Sen. Dick Cohen will be honored next week by a national arts organization for his long-standing commitment to the arts.

Cohen, who had been mentioned earlier this year as a possible chair of the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, will get a 2009 Public Leadership in the Arts Award from the group Americans for the Arts. It will be given July 22 at the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Legislative Summit in Philadelphia.

He gets the award for a career's-worth of arts support in the Legislature, particularly for getting the arts included in the constitutional amendement that just kicked in to help the outdoors and the arts.

“Sen. Cohen has been the chief legislative champion of the arts in Minnesota since his early days in the Senate,” said Jay Dick of Americans for the Art. “Due to his tireless support for the arts, state funding for the arts in Minnesota will increase from $10 million per year to over $30 million next year and continue at this level for at least the next 25 years. There is no one more deserving of this honor.” 

In explaining the honor, the NCSL says:

His love for the arts started in high school when he was an usher and a stage hand at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater. Many years later, he is now serving his 5th term on the board of directors for that same theater. In addition to being on the Guthrie board, he also serves on the board of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is formerly an ex-officio board member of the National Assembly of State’s Arts Agencies, formerly a member of the policy board for the Americans for the Arts and he was also a participant in 1997 at Columbia University’s American Assembly Forum for the Public Purpose and the Arts.