Three artists were recognized for their contributions to the arts of North Carolina with the Sam Ragan Fine Arts Award presented Thursday evening at St. Andrews Presbyterian College.

The awards were presented to Mary Louise Bringle for music, Art McDonald for graphic art and David Rigsbee for literature.

“I attended many of these ceremonies here at St. Andrews,” said Bringle, who spent 17 years on the St. Andrews faculty. “I can tell you in all honesty that it never crossed my mind that I’d be on this side of the festivities. I owe a great deal to St. Andrews.”

In honor of Ragan, Bringle quoted from his poem “Salute to St. Andrews.” “Have you felt it yet? Yes, it is something to feel. You can see the grass, the trees, All the green and growing things, And you can hear the voices, Taste the sweetness of the air, But you have to feel it –“

“I have felt it, and I still feel it, the magic of this place. I am so deeply moved to have the privilege to share this occasion with you,” Bringle said.

Bringle was honored for her second career as a hymn text writer.

“I began my vocation as a person who puts words to music here at St. Andrews,” Bringle said. “It was not just the convergence of time and place, but also of the people. I had a former student, John Ward, who out of the blue asked me to write a hymn text for his wedding. I tried it and I was hooked. Then I met Sally Ann Morris, an alumna honored with this award last year, at an alumni gathering. She said that if I was interested in writing hymns I should join the national hymn society. I didn’t know that such an entity existed but I joined and it changed my life.”

Her texts are included in hymnals and supplements of numerous denominations. She currently serves as president of The Hymn Society in the US and Canada, and is chairing the committee of the Presbyterian Church USA to create a new denominational hymnal. Bringle is currently a professor of philosophy and religious studies and chair of the Humanities Division at Brevard College.

McDonald, who had served as a theatre professor at St. Andrews for the better part of two decades, was recognized for his second career as an Asian influenced papermaker.

“I had the experience of the performance art,” he said. “I retired and became a visual artist. The visual arts were an individual undertaking. I could exhibit my work and it didn’t get thrown away like the sets. But as I studied the art of papermaking, I came to have a different understanding of paper…. I suddenly became aware that I didn’t give up community; I just joined a different community. Thank you for recognizing the craft of papermaking with this award.”

Rigsbee, a professor of English at Mount Olive College, completed the festivities with a reading at the St. Andrews Writers’ Forum. He has 12 books of poetry published, with two new titles slated for publication this year.

“The second poem I ever had published was in the St. Andrews Review,” Rigsbee recalled. “I was an undergraduate and it was how I met Ron (Bayes, St. Andrews writer-in-residence). It always feels good to be here. Thank you so much for this award.”