Story by Frances Figart | Photo by Sarah Jones Decker
Growing up as a Methodist preacher’s kid, Denise Sneller Cook understood what it meant to have a ‘calling.’ Living in inner city Atlanta where her father ministered to the poor, the 13-year-old went on a peaceful march to the Town Hall with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“He seemed like a kind man and, initially, I didn’t recognize anything extraordinary or special about Dr. King,” she says, “but what struck me at the height of the march was his great ability to bring people together for strength of purpose.”
Cook is now the mother of two and a grandmother of four. She lives high on a mountain with the love of her life, plays the flute in her community orchestra and occasionally dabbles in painting. Like her father and like Dr. King, she enjoys a community leadership role that is more of a ‘calling’ than a job. She is the executive director of an award-winning community arts organization, which she has led for three of its four decades.
Though Art Education was Cook’s first major at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, she later received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. In the ’70s, she settled in Ft. Myers, Florida, where she was the in-house graphic designer for a wholesale marine supply company, “way back before computers made the process so much easier.” With her first husband and two daughters, she made annual camping trips to Yancey County to meet up with her parents, who had settled in New York.
When her parents retired to Burnsville in 1986, Cook and her husband soon decided to leave Florida and move to Yancey County too, seeing it as “a quieter, less transient place to continue to raise our daughters.” In the fall of 1987, she saw a job posting for the director of the local arts council, applied and was hired by December.
Before Cook, Toe River Arts Council (TRAC) had only one director, Susan Larson, who organized the nonprofit in 1976 with a strong focus on arts education and a close alignment with Music in the Mountains, an organization created in 1970 to stimulate the musical life of Yancey and Mitchell counties through education and performances.
Cook’s parents had placed a strong emphasis on music, involving their five children in singing and learning piano. In her new role, Cook prioritized working closely with the director of Music in the Mountains, Judith Grenell.
“So many areas were duplicated by the two organizations, and by 1988 the groups merged,” Cook says. “It was received well by the community and we were able to keep the name alive through one of the programs originally sponsored by Music in the Mountains.”
Since then, TRAC has seen a myriad of developmental changes, including the renovation of buildings for offices, classrooms and gallery storefronts. From 2010 to 2012, the organization became a central player in the $2 million dollar revitalization of Mitchell County, receiving a $245,000 grant to assist with creating the Arts Resource Center.
Currently Cook is focused on branding the area as a cultural destination and on improving Burnsville’s economy through the arts. Among many other facets of this initiative, TRAC is helping to create a nexus of trails and an impressive artistic gateway with blown glass installations. Working with Cook on this endeavor is Wanda Proffitt, executive director for the Yancey County Economic Development Commission.
“One of the pleasures of my job is having an opportunity to work with and get to know Denise,” says Proffitt. “Not only is she an avid advocate for the cultural arts but she consistently and aggressively works to improve the local economy by supporting many local community endeavors.”
Another colleague, Nello McDaniel, is director of ARTS Action Research, a New York consulting firm that works with TRAC. “Anyone needing evidence of the positive, amplifying effects of collaboration need only see Denise Cook in action,” he says. “Denise has a gift of analyzing needs and issues in the counties and almost instinctively knowing the right combination of individual skills, knowledge and interests to bring to bear.”
Cook is empowered when she is connecting people with the arts and seeing the impact it can make on individuals, education, communities and economic development. “To me it’s about making connections and creating relationships that build up the community. I’m excited about new possibilities—about how the arts can shape communities and lives, making a difference.”
Cook says her greatest influences are her family and “life mate,” Robert Phillips, whom she met and fell in love with after relocating to Yancey County. Inspiration comes from her TRAC co-workers and numerous colleagues like Larson, Proffitt and McDaniel.
“Nobody can refuse Denise when called upon,” says McDaniel. “She is one of the ‘go-to’ problem-solvers and rainmakers in Yancey and Mitchell counties, and a gold standard for local arts council activism in the state.”
The Toe River Studio Tour will be held December 2–4. See the full story on page 20. TRAC has two galleries: Burnsville TRAC Gallery at 102 West Main Street, Burnsville, and Spruce Pine TRAC Gallery at 269 Oak Avenue, Spruce Pine. Learn more at toeriverarts.org and find TRAC on Facebook.
