Dusty Rhodes retires from Iredell Arts Council

Dusty Rhodes is retiring.
And this time, he means it.
Topics like Florida and golf and "turning the page" and the rest of the post-work language easily enter conversations with him.

His plan is for he and his wife, Rita, to sell their house, load up their stuff — which includes many works of art — and head south to a kind of retirement mecca called The Villages.

"And play lots of golf."
But Rhodes, who officially stepped down last week as the executive director of the Iredell Arts Council, likes a lot of things.

He earned a degree in math from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on an ROTC scholarship and served 23 years as a Naval officers before retiring — for the first time — at the rank of commander.

He then went to work at Crescent Electric Membership Corporation (later EnergyUnited), put in 20 years and retired again.

But before picking up his metaphorical gold watch there, he was called on to fill the void left at the IAC when founding Executive Director James Walker died after 27 years on the job.

Rhodes took the post as a part-time avocation but put his heart into And he's leaving, in part, for that same reason.
"He really moved things along after Mr. Walker passed away," said Sandra Campbell, president of the IAC Board of Directors. "I'm sad to see him go and am really going to miss him."

But the twice-retired Rhodes said the job takes more than he has left to give.
"I never wanted to be full-time. I wouldn't have taken the job if it was full-time," Rhodes said. "But for this to be done the right way and move in the direction we want it to move, it has to be full-time."

And so it was decided by the IAC Board earlier this year that the time was right for change along those lines to take place.

"We said we either had to let it go completely to make it grow," Rhodes said. "We knew it couldn't stay the same."
Once IAC leaders were clear that they were not going for the first option, they realized they needed to replace Rhodes as the head — and only paid employee — of the organization.

"That was the first and most important step," Rhodes said. "I had to get out of the way so a full-time, professional director can bring the energy, time and skill to the Arts Council."

The IAC is also going to start raising funds for the expansion of its mission, which is — simply — to "initiate, encourage, and support arts and cultural activities" in Iredell.

And because part of that mission involves helping other arts groups in the county, it had always been felt by IAC leaders that fundraising at-large would put the organization in a position of competing for dollars with the very people and groups they were assisting.

"But part of our problem has been that we have never had enough funds to do this right," Rhodes said. "And I think, eventually, we will."

Rhodes continues to use the collective pronoun in speaking of a time when he will be teeing it up in the Sunshine State.

"I'll always be available if they need me," he said. "I'm just a phone call away."
Rhodes said art — be it fine, musical or the performance variety — is not merely an experience received by the five senses by rather something absorbed into a deeper place.

"It's not what compliments the colors of your house or something that looks like your dog," he said.
"Art is the reaction you get when you see something or hear something," he continued. "It can scare you or make you smile or make you laugh or cry or make you think. It puts you in touch with your emotions and without it a society loses its conscience and loses it soul."

Campbell said Rhodes' replacement has been chosen and that that information about the IAC's new executive director will be made available next week.