Petra: Lost City of Stone Honored

March 28, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY

It was almost a year ago that Petra: Lost City of Stone opened at Calvin
College for a four and a half month run in the Prince Conference Center.

Now, the co-chairs of the Petra steering committee are being honored for their
work in leading a team of Calvin employees who promoted Petra far and wide.

Interchange, an association of West Michigan communication professionals, will
honor Calvin president Gaylen Byker and Calvin director of the January Series
June Hamersma as its Communicators of the Year at the April 2006 annual awards
ceremony.

Says Interchange director of communication Kelly Campbell: "In a yearly
ceremony, Interchanges recognizes community leaders who have demonstrated
outstanding communication efforts. This year's honorees, Gaylen Byker and June
Hamersma, were responsible for promoting Petra: Lost City of Stone throughout
Grand Rapids and beyond. They brought statewide attention to this exhibition, a
world-class event which visited only three cities in the United States."

For her part Hamersma is quick to deflect attention to the entire team which
worked on the event.

"This award is really an award for those who served patiently and endlessly on
the steering committee," she says, "those who worked tirelessly on this project
in addition to all of their regular work at Calvin because they believed in the
project and wanted to see Petra succeed. The steering committee included staff
from many different departments at Calvin - everyone from the physical plant
folks and art department to the January Series, President's office and more.
Their incredible dedication, along with the staff at the Prince Conference
Center, made Petra the enormous success it was. My dream would be to have the
names of each one of them engraved on a gold plaque someplace."

Over the 19-week, 115-day run of the Petra exhibition a total of 63,808
tickets were sold for the show. The final number just tops the 62,203 people
who saw Petra during its 20-week run at the Cincinnati Art Museum from
September 14, 2004 to January 30, 2005.

"By just the final attendance number we can consider Petra a marvelous
success," says Hamersma. "But more important than simply the final number is
the way the people who attended felt about the exhibition. Our visitor surveys
showed that people were overwhelmingly positive about the experience. We said
all along that Petra was Calvin's gift to the community. To have that gift
received and appreciated is very gratifying to all of us at Calvin who worked
so hard on the project."

The Calvin team will be honored by Interchange on Wednesday, April 12 at the
Press Club of Grand Rapids where the evening will include a reception at 5:30
pm, followed by a 6 pm dinner and short presentation by Hamersma and Byker.

Petra: Lost City of Stone opens April 10 in Calgary, its last North American
stop.

Contact June Hamersma at 616-526-6629 or Gaylen Byker at 616-526-6101
Contact Interchange president Greg Melvin at gmelvin@grotenhuis.com or call
616-949-7950, x3134

-end-
Received on Mon Mar 27 22:45:08 2006