1) Please share this petition with alumni, current students, family; everyone! Use the hashtag #HempfieldforKPAC (Kautter Performing Arts Center) to spread word of this petition on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). Send emails, send texts, call old friends!

2) The petition is open to everyone. However, we would like to especially emphasize supporters who live within the Hempfield School District. If you live within the Hempfield School District, please make sure your settings say your borough (Farmdale, East Petersburg, etc.) OR "Hempfield School District" as your location.

3) After submitting your signature, leave a comment at the bottom of the Change.org page, feel free to share you favorite stories and testimonials about Pat.

 

In the Hempfield School District, we honor those who taught us how to walk, talk, sing and dance. We cannot forget where we came from, or else we will not know where we are going.

Whereas: Hempfield High School takes pride in those who have come before and honors those who have made meaningful contributions to the great standards of excellence that will continue to propel academic success in the twenty-first century and beyond.

Whereas: For thirty-two years as a Hempfield educator, Patricia H. Kautter set a standard of excellence that few others have reached and is a shining north star to future generations of Hempfield educators and students.

Whereas: The Performing Arts Center was Patricia H. Kautter's home outside of the classroom. She was instrumental in its design and for over two decades she directed over a hundred individual plays, musicals, and Dance Theatre productions, with a casts of thousands and tens of thousands more community members in the audience.

In light of the exceptional work over decades and her high standards of excellence, we move that the Performing Arts Center be dedicated to Patricia H. Kautter and hereafter be known as the Patricia H. Kautter Performing Arts Center.

Background: Patricia Kautter was an educator, artist, labor advocate, friend and mother who was beloved to countless many over her thirty-two year career at Hempfield High School.

She helped build the high standards of excellence that we are so proud of in the Hempfield School District. Future generations of Hempfield staff and students can look to her as an inspiration of how a passionate, intelligent, creative soul with a deep love of education can make a difference to the district. 

Patricia Kautter interacted directly with tens of thousands of students. Some were in her ninety-eight individual English classes. Others were in the sixty-five acting and dance/movement classes she taught or the over fifty plays and musicals she directed. And, of course, the thousands of students who were in her twenty-eight productions of Dance Theatre.

When Pat created Dance Theatre, she opened so many Hempfield students' eyes to the wonderful creativity of dance, and tens of thousands more parents, grandparents, siblings and neighbors helped this vision come to be.

Most schools do not have a Dance Theatre, as most school districts did not have a Patricia Kautter.

In the early 1990's, when Hempfield was building the Performing Arts Center, Pat insisted on its state-of-the art design. The consistently strong and high-calibre productions that were later housed therein proved worthy of her vision, setting consistently high-quality standards for Hempfield productions to this day. For the thousands of people who performed in her productions, the PAC is already synonymous with her name.

Memories fade if we don't take the time to honor and remember those who came before us. It is easy to forget that we only stand where we stand because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Patricia Kautter was a giant of Hempfield. It would be an honor to name the Performing Arts Center after her and inspire future generations to dance.

Thank you for reading, let's show PK the love she has earned!

#HempfieldforKPAC