Orange Blossom Award: Tracy Kennard, How the Arts Actually Happen
by Avery Anderson
Some people are visible champions of the arts.
Others are the reason the system works at all.
Tracy Kennard belongs firmly in the second category—and St. Petersburg is better for it.
In her work with the City of St. Petersburg, Tracy operates at the intersection where creativity meets civic reality. She coordinates projects that involve artists, city departments, timelines, contracts, and public trust—then somehow makes that process feel navigable instead of intimidating. For many artists, she is the difference between an opportunity that feels out of reach and one that actually gets completed.
Her impact shows up in tangible, everyday ways:
- Public art projects that move forward instead of stalling out
- Artists who successfully organize and submit grants because someone took the time to walk them through the process
- Creative initiatives that connect across departments, neighborhoods, and disciplines instead of living in silos
- A city arts ecosystem where people know who to call—and know they’ll get a real answer
Just as importantly, Tracy understands that arts administration isn’t just paperwork—it’s people. She listens. She follows up. She connects dots that others don’t see yet. She helps artists translate their vision into language the city can support, without losing the soul of the work.
As Celeste E. Davis, Director of Arts, Culture & Tourism, beautifully puts it:
“Tracy Kennard is like the lights along our streets, illuminating the beauty all around us. She is deeply committed to meaningful, high-level engagement within St. Petersburg, and her contributions enrich both personal experiences and our City of the Arts. Through her dedication, the arts and the community they serve shine brighter.”
That brightness isn’t abstract. It’s visible in completed projects, supported artists, and a cultural infrastructure that functions because someone is paying attention to every detail—and every person—involved.
Today’s Orange Blossom honors Tracy Kennard for her direct, lasting impact on St. Petersburg’s arts community. Not just for what she coordinates, but for how many people are able to create, apply, build, and belong because she’s there doing the work.
What Are the Orange Blossom Awards?
A month-long series from The Arts Passport celebrating the people and organizations whose quiet, steady work strengthens Tampa Bay’s arts ecosystem. No applications. No campaigning. Just community-driven recognition, released daily in December.
Other Orange Blossom Stories:
December 1
Orange Blossom Award: Cheryl Davis and the Art of Showing Up
by Avery Anderson Every arts community has its stars — the people onstage, the names in the program, the ones audiences come to see. But Tampa Bay’s arts ecosystem runs on something deeper: the quiet, unglamorous, fiercely devoted labor of people who rarely get recognized. That’s why The Arts
Avery Anderson
December 2
Orange Blossom Award: The Quiet Coalition Behind a Theater Dream
by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes not to an individual, but to an unlikely coalition — four Tampa Bay theaters that came together this fall to help a much smaller organization make a very public case for its future. Dunedin Public Theater is barely two years old — volunteer-run,
Avery Anderson
December 3
Orange Blossom Award: The Architect of Reading Circles
by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to someone whose work rarely draws attention, yet hundreds of St. Pete readers feel its ripple effects every single month — whether they realize it or not. Before most book clubs at Tombolo Books ever meet, before the emails go out or
Avery Anderson
December 4
Orange Blossom Award: The Keeper of Women’s Stories
by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to someone whose work is so woven into Tampa’s arts landscape that many people don’t realize they’ve been shaped by it — not directly, but through the countless stories she’s helped bring into the world. Long before a
Avery Anderson
December 5
Orange Blossom Award: The Leader Who Let Herself Feel — and Then Got to Work
by Avery Anderson Every day in December, The Arts Passport is recognizing someone whose quiet, persistent work holds this region’s arts scene together — the kind of people who rarely get applause but absolutely deserve it. We call them the Orange Blossom Awards: small spotlights for the folks who keep
Avery Anderson
December 6
Orange Blossom Award: The Man Behind Tampa Bay’s Most-Seen Moments
by Avery Anderson In nearly every corner of Tampa Bay theatre, from splashy musicals to the smallest black box, there’s one person quietly shaping how audiences see the work — long after the curtain falls. He’s not onstage. He’s not giving notes. He’s usually somewhere in the
Avery Anderson
December 7
Orange Blossom Award: The Educator Who Rebuilt the Room While Standing In It
by Avery Anderson A quick reminder of what the Orange Blossom Awards are — in a city full of shiny galas and people congratulating themselves for “raising awareness,” these awards are for the other people.
The ones doing the unglamorous, quietly revolutionary work that actually shifts the ground under our arts
Avery Anderson
December 8
Orange Blossom Award: The Year Julia Rifino Climbed a Musical Mountain
By Avery Anderson Some artists bloom slowly. Others spend years quietly filling the room with talent until suddenly—one night, one show, one impossible marathon of a performance—the city realizes, oh… she’s a force of nature. This year, that moment belonged to Julia Rifino. If you’ve been
Avery Anderson
December 9
Orange Blossom Award: The First Phone Call Everyone Makes
by Avery Anderson Some leaders shine on stages. Others shine in boardrooms.
Terri Lipsey Scott shines in the moments when someone calls and says, “We need you.” Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to the Executive Director of the Woodson African American Museum of Florida — a woman whose leadership in
Avery Anderson
December 10
Orange Blossom Award: The Quiet Producer
by Avery Anderson When people talk about “giving artists a voice,” they usually mean the visible parts: the microphone, the camera, the finished clip that pops up in your feed. What they rarely talk about is the person who made sure the microphone worked, the audio didn’t glitch, the
Avery Anderson
December 11
Orange Blossom Award: The Connector of Music
by Avery Anderson There’s a version of the arts ecosystem that runs on competition, scarcity, and quiet side-eye. And then there’s the version that actually works. This Orange Blossom Award goes to Matthew Morris—because he chose the second one. You might know Matthew as the leader of
Avery Anderson
December 12
Orange Blossom Award: The Hugs, the Work, the Legacy
by Avery Anderson Some people leave behind a body of work.
Others leave behind a way of working. Stephen Bell was the latter. This year, Tampa Bay lost one of its quiet architects—an artist who didn’t chase the spotlight but somehow illuminated every room he entered. Stephen passed
Avery Anderson
December 13
Orange Blossom Award: Taking the Wheel Mid-Turn
by Avery Anderson There’s a particular moment in the life of a theatre company that determines everything that comes next. The founder steps away. The safety net disappears. The question becomes painfully simple: Do we play it safe—or do we decide who we are, right now? This year
Avery Anderson
December 14
Orange Blossom Award: When Infrastructure Becomes Impact
by Avery Anderson Every few years, a city rediscovers a conversation it swore it was already having. In 2025, Tampa Bay is once again talking—loudly—about equity, access, and who actually benefits when a region “thrives.” What’s different this time is the growing recognition that visibility alone isn’
Avery Anderson
December 15
Orange Blossom Award: Katherine Yacko, The One Who Shows Up
by Avery Anderson There are artists who build careers.
And then there are artists who build ecosystems. Katherine Yacko has spent this year doing the second — often quietly, often in rooms where credit isn’t the point, and often while pregnant. She shows up first as a theatregoer. Not occasionally.
Avery Anderson
December 16
Orange Blossom Award: Darcy Schuller, Building What Lasts
by Avery Anderson Arts administrators are often praised for keeping the lights on. Darcy Schuller does something more consequential: she builds the conditions that allow ambition to last. Since joining the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Pete in 2021, Schuller—now Deputy Director and COO—has helped guide the institution
Avery Anderson
December 17
Orange Blossom Award: Freddie Hughes, Building Where Art Can Breathe
by Avery Anderson There’s a difference between hanging work on a wall and building a space where people feel safe enough to see themselves in it. Freddie Hughes understands that difference—and at The Studio@620, he’s quietly turning it into an ecosystem. Known artistically as FreddieFred, Hughes
Avery Anderson
December 18
Orange Blossom Award: The Grant Survivors
by Avery Anderson This one isn’t for a single person.
It’s for the spreadsheet warriors.
The midnight submitters.
The folks who stared at a score they’d never been punished for before and thought, Wait — what? This year, Florida’s arts funding didn’t just shift.
It lurched.
Avery Anderson
December 19
Orange Blossom Award: The Sapphic Sun, and Starting Something New
by Avery Anderson For building new cultural infrastructure—one page at a time Most new arts projects don’t fail because the idea is bad.
They fail because the follow-through is brutal. Printing costs. Distribution headaches. Burnout. The slow realization that “launching” is the easy part—and showing up again
Avery Anderson
December 20
Orange Blossom Award: Aych, The One Who Built the Circuit
by Avery Anderson Tampa’s music scene doesn’t suffer from a lack of talent.
It suffers from fragmentation. Great artists. Scattered rooms. Isolated nights that feel electric inside the venue — and then disappear by morning. What’s rare isn’t the show. It’s the connective tissue that turns
Avery Anderson
December 21
Orange Blossom Award: The Sunshine City Mosaic Team
by Avery Anderson For turning public art into a love letter that will outlast us Some public art is designed to be photographed.
The Sunshine City Mosaic was designed to be lived with. Stretching 175 feet through downtown St. Petersburg, the tile installation doesn’t shout for attention. It rewards
Avery Anderson
December 22
Orange Blossom Award: The Good Peaches
by Avery Anderson For proving collaboration can still be brave In a year when arts organizations were told — implicitly and explicitly — to stay in their lanes, The Good Peaches did the opposite. The production brought together American Stage, The Florida Orchestra, and projectALCHEMY for a genuinely shared act of creation:
Avery Anderson
December 23
Orange Blossom Award: Florida Freedom to Read Project
by Avery Anderson Hillsborough County didn’t just lead Florida in book removals this year.
It led the country. More than 11,000 physical books were pulled from shelves.
Over 500 unique titles were removed at once.
And 55 books were permanently taken out of circulation—not after review, but
Avery Anderson
December 24
Orange Blossom Award: Matthew McGee and the Power of Yes
by Avery Anderson There are people in the arts community who don’t need to announce their values.
You feel them in the way they respond. For Matthew McGee, that response is almost always the same: yes. Before The Arts Passport had a launch plan, a membership structure, or even
Avery Anderson
December 25
Orange Blossom Award: The Ones Who Held the Net
by Avery Anderson Some Orange Blossom Awards go to people with titles.
This one goes to the people who made it possible for there to be anything at all. Today—on Christmas Day—we’re honoring Adam and Natalie Bounds, and David DiGioacchino . You won’t see their names on
Avery Anderson
December 26
Orange Blossom Award: Keeping the Light On, Florida Holocaust Museum
by Avery Anderson This Orange Blossom isn’t for a ribbon cutting.
It’s for the quiet, exacting, collective work it took to reopen the Florida Holocaust Museum in a year when memory itself feels under threat. Behind the polished cases and calibrated lighting was a staff doing something harder
Avery Anderson
December 27
Orange Blossom Award: Bill DeYoung
by Avery Anderson For building the cultural memory of a place. This December, Orange Blossoms are our way of slowing down in a fast news cycle — a daily pause to recognize the people whose work doesn’t always come with a spotlight, but without whom Tampa Bay’s cultural life
Avery Anderson
December 28
Orange Blossom Award: The Work That Makes the Work Possible
by Avery Anderson This December, Orange Blossoms are our way of slowing down in a fast news cycle — a daily pause to recognize the people whose work doesn’t always come with a spotlight, but without whom Tampa Bay’s cultural life would look very different. Today’s is for someone
Avery Anderson