3 named to Lexington 2 Fine Arts Hall of Fame

Lexington School District Two invites the public to an induction ceremony this month for three individuals selected to the district’s Fine Arts Hall of Fame.

The three — Sarah Elizabeth Jones, Frances Steadman Maddox and Barbara Jean Ward  — will be recognized for their contributions to the arts during an induction ceremony set for 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, at the Lexington Two Performing Arts Center, 3205 Platt Springs Road.

The Lexington Two Fine Arts Hall of Fame recognizes individuals and groups who have demonstrated excellence in art, music, theater, dance or creative writing. An inductee may be a graduate of Airport High School or Brookland-Cayce High School; a Lexington Two educator who greatly contributed to arts in the district; a community member who has given time and resources for the advancement of the fine arts in Lexington Two; or any combination of the three. Inductees are selected by a committee of Lexington Two stakeholders.

Here are this year’s inductees:

Sarah Elizabeth Jones was a camera assistant and a member of the International Cinematographers Guild in the film industry. At age 27, while working on a movie, she was run over by a train. The director had placed his cast and crew on an active trestle without permission from the railroad. News of her death created a wave of grief and anger throughout the world film community, carrying with it a call for safer film sets.

Jones was honored in the 2014 Academy Awards broadcast by the Society of Cinematographers and by thousands of movie slates throughout the world. She was raised in West Columbia.  She attended Northside Middle School and Brookland-Cayce High School, where she was active on the swim team, as a cheerleader and in numerous other activities, often seen with a camera in hand.

Frances Steadman Maddox showed her musical talent in early childhood. In second grade, when she began piano lessons, she already knew she would become a music teacher. Maddox grew up playing piano in church and at community events. Along with piano, she played oboe and clarinet in the Laurens High School Marching Band. She continued to excel in piano and conducting classes at Furman University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in music education.

While teaching chorus and music theory at Airport High School, Frances earned a master’s degree in music education with an emphasis in music theory from the University of South Carolina.

Along with being a mother and a classroom teacher, Maddox served in Lexington School District Two as the Fine Arts Department chair and was selected Lexington Two District Teacher of the Year in 1982. At Airport High School, Frances was selected as Teacher of the Year in 1976, and years after her 2006 retirement, she was inducted into the Airport High School Wall of Fame.

During her teaching career, she served as president and board member of the South Carolina Music Educators Association and president of the South Carolina Choral Directors Association. She was a National Association for Music Education member.

Barbara Jean Ward was born in 1942 in Columbia. She graduated from the University of South Carolina with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. As a child, she drew and painted, finding beauty in the colorful way that she saw the world. In the early 1960s, she studied in New York at Columbia University and lived in Greenwich Village. In 1965, Ward began her teaching career as a first-grade teacher at the original Heathwood Hall Episcopal School. The following year, in 1966, she was hired to teach art at Fulmer Middle School in Lexington Two.

During her career in Lexington Two, Ward taught at B-C Grammar School No. 1, Pineview Elementary School and Northside Middle School, as well as in adult art classes after school. In addition to teaching art, she helped write the elementary and middle school art curriculum for Lexington Two. Ward retired in 1996 and went on to share her talents for years as the artist for Riverbanks Zoo & Garden. She is recognized yearly at the South Carolina State Fair in the student art exhibit by the Little Flowers Award.

The three newest Lexington Two Fine Arts Hall of Fame inductees join members William E. Ackerman, Deborah Smith Hoffman, Vicki Stilwell Horne, Jeremy Hudson, Larry Francis Lebby, Jacquelyn “Jackie” Moore McNeill, Eva Pilgrim, Steven Whetstone and Keith Williams.