Patrick Overton currently serves as Director of the Front Porch Institute which focuses on creating and delivering resources to enhance community arts development in rural/small communities. He is author of Rebuilding the Front Porch of America: Essays on the Art of Community Making published in 1997. He also edited the book Grassroots & Mountain Wings: the arts in rural and small communities published in 1993. He was the founding President of the Missouri Association of Community Arts Agencies and served as its Executive Director from 1984-1990. He began his work in the field of community arts development by serving as director of the Community Arts Program for Boonville, Missouri, a community of 6,300. He has a Ph.D. in Organizational Communications and is a frequent workshop leader, keynote speaker, and continues to research, write, and publish articles and essays about the vital role the arts make to rural/small communities all across the nation. He is a recipient of the 1999 Missouri Arts Award given to him in recognition of his twenty years of work in Missouri on behalf of the arts in rural/small communities.