Museum Board of Advisors Adds Four New Members

The members of the museum’s Board of Advisors share the mission of the museum and the University of Georgia to support and promote teaching, research, and service by working to increase public awareness of the museum and its exhibitions and programs as well as supporting the museum through financial gifts and acquisitions of art. At the beginning of this new fiscal year, which started July 1, we added four new members.

Lacy Middlebrooks Camp, of Athens, was a marriage and family therapist for more than 30 years and is the former executive director of Samaritan Counseling Center in Athens. She also served as a past president of the Friends Board of Directors at the museum and has been a docent with us since 2015. She trained in process painting with Stewart Cubley and is certified in creating mandalas. She received the annual M. Smith Griffith Volunteer Award (the “Smitty”) from the museum in 2021 and has been part of the committee for the museum’s annual Black History Awards Celebration event.

Wes Cochran, of LaGrange, Georgia, is a retired stonemason and a major art collector. He has the largest collection of Andy Warhol prints (per capita) in the United States. The Cochran Collection(opens in new tab) primarily focuses on 20th-century prints by American artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Sam Gilliam, Hale Woodruff and many others, and includes a large number of works by African American artists. He and his wife, Missy, opened the Cochran Gallery in LaGrange in 2007. The Cochrans lend works from their collection to institutions and museums throughout the Southeast to share art with the public.

Freda Scott Giles, of Athens, is a professor emerita in the department of theatre and film studies at the University of Georgia and former associate director of UGA’s Institute for African American Studies. She is an active member of the Athens, GA, chapter of the Links, Incorporated, a national social and service organization of Black women that has worked closely with the museum on its annual Black History Awards Celebration, which Giles chaired in 2022. Giles is also a former member of the museum’s Friends Board of Directors.

Sylvia Hillyard Pannell, of Athens, is also a professor emerita in the department of theatre and film studies at the University of Georgia and has been a theatrical designer and educator for over three decades. Her previous teaching appointments include Southwest Missouri State University, the University of New Orleans and Tulane University, and she is a member of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology. She is also a member of the museum’s Friends Board of Directors, on which she serves as chair of the bylaws committee.