The St. Johns Cultural Council, which promotes arts, culture and heritage in St. Johns County, recently announced that Christina Parrish Stone will retire from her role as executive director at the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, after a dynamic and highly successful five years of leadership.
The Cultural Council’s Board of Directors has initiated a comprehensive process to select a new executive director. Parrish Stone will provide consulting services after her retirement to ensure a smooth transition.
“It has been an absolute privilege to lead the St. Johns Cultural Council and help advance the organization’s mission,” she said. “My years in St. Augustine have been the most rewarding of a long career, and the hard-working Cultural Council staff and board have been a joy to work with.”
During Parrish Stone's leadership, the Cultural Council experienced remarkable growth and dramatically increased the support it provides to local artists and cultural organizations, while elevating St. Johns County’s marketing to cultural travelers.
Highlights of her tenure include negotiation of a new five-year contract to provide destination marketing services for the county; an agreement with St. Augustine to lease and activate The Waterworks as a venue for arts, culture and heritage programming; work with St. Augustine Beach to secure National Register status for the St. Augustine Beach Hotel; expanding and improving the county’s Art in Public Spaces program with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; and dramatically increasing funding for individual artists and arts organizations through new and expanded grant programs.
