The Arts & Cultural Authority of Claxton & Evans County was established in 2020 through a Resolution approved by the City of Claxton and the Evans County Board of Commissioners.
The Authority was created to “acquire by purchase, gift, lease or otherwise any real or personal property for which the Authority deems needful and necessary to protect and preserve for its artistic, cultural and/or historic value for the use , benefit and preservation of and for the citizens of Evans County.”
The Board of the Authority has 12 members:
- Chair of the Board of County Commissioners (or his/her designee) – Shela Holland Lee
- Member appointed by the County Commissioners
- Mayor of City of Claxton (or his/her designee) – Terry Branch
- Member appointed by City of Claxton
- Chair of the Board of Education – Bo Eason (as of 10/20/25)
- Executive Director of the Industrial Development Authority – Adam Kennedy
- Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce – Tammi Hall
- President of the Historical Society (or his/her designee)
- 3 appointees from the Strickland Foundation
The ACA website does not designate which members are appointees for which entities, but other members include Darin McCoy, Patrician Milton, Hub Daniel, Paul Eason, Diane Holland, Annie Johnson, and Tommy Strickland.
The July 2020 resolution is signed by Mayor Terry Branch and then-County Chair Irene Burney.
Read the Enabling Resolution from 2020, which created the Arts & Cultural Authority
Read the Lease Agreement between Evans County Board of Education & Arts & Cultural Authority
I would love to see start to finish what Lynn construction was paid from the board and the ACA from start to finish. I worked on it from 2022 til Feb of 2024 on and off for Lynn. I been gone 18 months from there. I mean just from the ACA in 2024 they were paid around $1.2 million.