Director Biographies

Dennis Holub

Dennis Holub has been Executive Director of the South Dakota Arts Council since 1988. Previously, he worked for the State Arts Council as the originator of South Dakota’s Artists in Schools Program, teaching creative dramatics and serving as the program coordinator. As community arts development director for the State Arts Council, he helped to establish South Dakota’s Community Arts Network in 1981.

Dennis has degrees in theater from the University of South Dakota and Indiana University where he worked for the Indiana Theatre Company. As a theatre artist, he acted and directed for the Shakespeare in the Streets Company in Minneapolis, the Black Hills Playhouse in South Dakota and briefly in New York City.

For several years he designed, made and marketed stained glass items while he also worked as an arts administrator for the South Dakota Arts Council.

Holub has served on several grant application review panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest and many state arts agencies. He serves on the boards of directors for Arts Midwest and the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.

In 2004, Holub received the Gary Young Award from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies for leadership as a director of a state arts agency. He lives in Pierre where the South Dakota Arts Council has been located since 1996.