In honor of the 55th Anniversary of the Georgia Art Education Association, following is an excerpt from a brief history of the organization I put together when organizing the application for GAEA to obtain non-profit status in the mid 1990s:

The first Georgia Art Education Association statewide conference was in February, 1970 at Stone Mountain.  An art teacher took out a personal line of credit at his bank for seed money for the meeting.  The GAEA President was Olleen Williams.  M. J. Root, art supervisor for Clarke County, and Sonny Bartlett, a first year art teacher, chaired the Conference. About 175 people attended the meeting.  There was a guest speaker, John Catalgo, but no business meetings were conducted.  The purpose of the meeting was fellowship.

In the first official GAEA Newsletter, dated Fall, 1970, the goals of the association were stated as working to improve communication among art educators and interested persons in the state, to secure greater recognition for art as an integral part of the school curriculum, to encourage research and experimentation and to promote professional growth among the members.  Membership fees to join GAEA for an active art teacher were $3.00 per year.  GAEA was not yet affiliated with the National Art Education Association.  

Deborah Lackey Wilson