Documentarian Dale Carpenter Wins Individual Artist Award

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Dale Carpenter, associate professor of journalism in Fulbright College at the University of Arkansas, won the 2003 Individual Artist Award from the Arkansas Arts Council in recognition of his artistic skills as a cinematographer, film editor and writer on 15 documentary films.

Among his most notable works are "The Sound of Dreams," featuring the Hot Springs Music Festival, and "A Long Season," a film about a little league team which has been broadcast annually on PBS for the last five years.

In October, Carpenter won a regional Emmy award for his photography on "The Forgotten Expedition," the story of William Dunbar and George Hunter, two nearly forgotten adventurers who offered the first reports on Louisiana and Arkansas, traced the Ouachita River, and discovered the natural hot springs that would become one of the country’s first national parks.

In February 2003, "The Forgotten Expedition" was named "Best of the Competition" by the Broadcast Education Association in the documentary category. The film was written, directed, and produced by Carpenter and Larry Foley, associate professor in journalism, with the score composed by James Greeson, a music professor at the U of A.

Carpenter scripted and produced two documentary films for the Developmental Disabilities Council, "People First" and "The Last Minority." Both received national awards and have been aired on local and regional television stations. Carpenter and Foley also have produced documentaries that showcase the talents of other UA faculty, such as "Good Science," which details the laser research of UA physicist Greg Salamo. In 1995, Carpenter won an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for "The Edge of Conflict: Arkansas and the Civil War."

Before joining the journalism faculty in 1994, Carpenter was Senior Producer for the Arkansas Educational Television Network