Last Updated: April 20, 2020 by webmaster

Faces of the NAC – Austen Hagood

Allow us to introduce to you to one of the Norfolk Arts Center’s amazing Board Members – Austen Hagood! Austen was born and raised in Texas and graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in English. Austen began his career in radio and moved to Nebraska about 7 years ago.

A few years after moving to Norfolk he started to get involved with the Norfolk Arts Center. He started helping with Soup R’ Art, then helped with the capital campaign for the endowment before finally joining our Board of Directors. He joined the Board because he believes in the mission of the NAC and wanted to help make the arts accessible to everyone. Austen’s favorite part of being on the Board is getting to see the yearly vision come alive!

The arts have always played an important role in Austen’s life. For him, it began with theater in middle school, then moved into radio – he says every day was a show. Graphic Art, music, performing arts, all of that lead him to his current job as the Marketing Officer at BankFirst. He says that his job uses music, works, and pictures all in an effort to advertise for the bank!

In his free time Austen is what one could call a serial hobbyist, he finds something he enjoys, masters it – then moves on to something new. Austen has done everything from oil painting, leather tooling, and even building guitars! He says that once he gets to hang of his new hobby he rarely does it again. This quality certainly makes Austen a jack of all trades!

Austen says that he has always believed the arts are a cornerstone of our culture, but his favorite will always be the performing arts. The Norfolk Arts Center’s performing arts program is his favorite part of the NAC. He loves that we work hard to bring world-class performances to our town!