S.C. Arts Awards Spotlight Series: Carrie Ann Power

Governor’s Award: Arts in Education Category

As the day nears for the 2022 South Carolina Arts Awards, The Hub is focusing on this year’s recipients: four receiving the South Carolina Governor’s Awards for the Arts and three receiving the Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award, which are managed jointly by the South Carolina Arts Commission and McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina.


Carrie Ann Power has been an arts educator and advocate in South Carolina for more 30 years.

Carrie Ann Power (center) receives her Governor’s Award from SCAC Executive Director David Platts and Board Chairwoman Dee Crawford on May 18, 2022. Click image to enlarge. SCAC photo.

Her arts education career began in 2004 as the fine arts department chair, grant manager, and visual arts teacher at East Aiken School of the Arts (EASOA) until 2015. During that time, she wrote and received arts grants on behalf of the school totaling more than $320,000 to transform EASOA by adding full-time dance and theatre programs. She managed South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) Distinguished Arts Program and Arts in Basic Curriculum (ABC) Project grants for 10 years.

Power developed and implemented all aspects of the EASOA after-school arts program and obtained community donations to fund scholarships that awarded access to low-income families.

During her tenure she was also coordinator of Curriculum Leadership Institute in the Arts, which improves and enhances pedagogy of arts lesson plans based on the 2010 S.C. Visual and Performing Arts Academic Standards with week-long summer sessions for teachers.

The SCDE was Power’s next stop, and she served as the education associate for visual and performing arts from 2015 until 2019. She oversaw the development of K-12 Design Standards for visual and performing arts and later coordinated their revisions. She also managed the Archibald Rutledge Scholarship Program, in which 12th-grade students vie for a scholarship in creative writing, dance, music, theatre, or visual arts.

She served an active role on notable state arts or arts education boards, including: the S.C. Art Education Association (elementary division coordinator), S.C. Music Educators Association, Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities (designee of the state superintendent of education), Palmetto State Arts Education, South Carolina Arts Alliance, and Aiken Performing Arts Board. She also served the ABC Project on the coordinators committee and continues to serve on the ABC advisory committee. In her community, she supports educational outreach programs that bring professional artists into schools and works on the board for Joye in Aiken, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the best in the performing arts available to its citizens, and especially for students.

Power received a bachelor’s degree in art education from Mansfield University in 1990 and a Master of Education in curriculum and instruction from Leslie University in 2007.


The South Carolina Arts Awards are coming live to SCETV on Monday, June 13, 2022 at 9 p.m. ET.

South Carolina ETV, the state’s public educational broadcasting network, will broadcast the awards ceremony through its 11-station TV network that spans the state. Viewers can access the broadcast via livestream on the homepage of SCETV.org; by using a digital antenna; or through cable, satellite, and streaming live TV providers. Further information about accessing SCETV is available here.