Arts & Entertainment

Peggy Spaeth Steps Down as Heights Arts Executive Director

Spaeth said she is moving on to explore other projects

Peggy Spaeth has confirmed that she will soon leave Heights Arts, where she had been executive director since the organization was founded in 2000.

"I've got some other projects I'd like to explore," she said Thursday morning. "I've been doing it for 13 years, so I figured I'd pass it along."

The Heights Arts Board of Trustees first announced Spaeth's departure Thursday morning in a news release from President Sharon Grossman. The organization will conduct a search to find Spaeth's replacement.

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"It’s hard for me to believe that Peggy is stepping down from the helm — but she has a few other things she wants to achieve in this lifetime," Grossman said. "We have been in this together from the beginning — 13 years of building Heights Arts, of setting and fulfilling goals to bring this community together through the arts.

"Thirteen years of fine art, the written word, public art, poet laureates, signs, benches, openings, murals, street concerts, home concerts, fund raisers, fun raisers, collaborations and installations.  Exhausting just to think of all we have done together."

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Spaeth said she has not developed any definitive plans about her future, other than to say that she will be working on a few projects.

"Retiring has a connotation that you're ending something," said Spaeth. "I'm making a transition in my life. I haven't really made any firm plans right now. I want to help get heights arts organized so the next person can it forward."

Grossman did not place a timetable on finding a new executive director.

"It’s an important juncture for Heights Arts as we celebrate Peggy’s tenure and look forward to identifying a new executive director to build on her legacy and extend the mission of Heights Arts into the coming decades," Grossman said.

Spaeth said people can still expect to see her out and about in the Heights community.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "I'm not retiring to Florida or the Bahamas or anything."


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