Philanthropists Art and Mary Heers of Mendon have been named as recipients of the 2022 Angel Award from the Lyric Repertory Company in recognition of their tradition of financial support of the theatre troupe.
LOGAN – Philanthropists Art and Mary Heers of Mendon have been named as recipients of the 2022 Angel Award from the Lyric Repertory Company.
The announcement of the award was made Tuesday by Paul T. Mitri, the artistic producer for the Lyric troupe and chairman of the Theatre Arts Department at Utah State University.
The award, presented during the 4th Annual Vosco Call Spotlight Concert, recognizes the Heers for decades of invaluable contributions to the Lyric Repertory Company.
Artistic Director Richie Call recalled that the theatre company could always count on the Heers for financial support ever since he was an USU acting student years ago.
Art and Mary Heers are alumni of Stanford University who have wholeheartedly transferred their alliance to Utah State.
The couple relocated to Cache Valley so that Art Heers could pursue an engineering career with Campbell Scientific, where his contributions have helped that firm become a worldwide industry leader in the development of measurement and control instruments.
Meanwhile, Mary Heers added a bachelor’s degree in theater arts as well as a teaching certificate from Utah State to her psychology degree from Stanford.
Her subsequent experience has included being a beloved teacher and drama coach at Preston High School; a thespian; a volunteer radio producer at Utah Public Radio; and the keeper of a small animal menagerie that includes three water buffaloes.
Mary Heers even played a cameo role in 2004 Sundance Film Festival phenomenon Napolean Dynamite.
The Heers had previously received an award from the USU Caine College of the Arts (CCA) in 2021 for their generous funding of a “world-class scene shop” for the theater arts program and their membership on the college’s advancement council.
The Angel Award was established by the Lyric Repertory Company in 2021. Its inaugural recipient was Julie Hollist-Terrill, who heads the Cache Valley Visitors Bureau.
Hollist-Terrill was recognized for her fund-raising efforts in partnership with local donors and businesses to bankroll the repertory company’s first ever holiday production of A Christmas Carol in December of 2021.