Arts at Hayfield, a nonprofit community arts support organization housed at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, recently awarded Penn State Wilkes-Barre students Shannon Brace and Yu Wei Xie with the Irene Thomas Memorial Award for their contributions to the arts.
Brace is a dean’s list student whose artistic interests include writing novel-length stories, poetry, short stories and poetic drama. She also is interested in photography, sewing, make-up design and artistic animation. Brace has been involved in creating artistic and scary elements for Penn State Wilkes-Barre’s Haunted Forest and serves as president of the Lazy Artists. She also participates in Student Government Association and the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments.
Xie holds a bachelor’s degree in dance education from Minzu University in Beijing, China. She previously taught dance in China and the United States; enjoys singing, drawing, and performing; and hopes to perform and teach dance to children after graduating from Penn State.
For more information, contact Melissa Gunshannon, Penn State Wilkes-Barre public information coordinator, at melissag@psu.edu or 570-675-9269.