Greater Bentonville Chamber to honor Alice Walton at annual event

Alice Walton, the founder of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville and daughter of Wal-Mart Stores founders Sam and Helen Walton, will receive the Sam M. Walton Award of Excellence at the Greater Bentonville Area Chamber of Commerce Awards Luncheon on Jan 25. The event is scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers.

The Sam M. Walton Award, according to the chamber, was established by the Bentonville Chamber and presented to Sam in 1979 to recognize his significant contributions to the city. Walton served on the group’s board of directors and was chairman in 1958.

Alice Walton also serves as chairwoman of the Crystal Bridges board, and she is a board member of the Walton Family Foundation.

She is a past recipient numerous  honors, according to the chamber, including of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art Medal, the American Federation of Arts Cultural Leadership Award, the John Cotton Dana Medal for Visionary Leadership in Museums, and the Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts for her significant philanthropic contributions.

Tickets to the annual chamber event are available at this link. Lieven Bertels, director of the Momentary in Bentonville, will be the keynote speaker. The Momentary is a new innovative arts venue in development near the 8th Street Market in Bentonville. A satellite project of Crystal Bridges, the adaptive reuse design will transform a decommissioned Kraft Foods plant into a multi-disciplinary space for visual and performing arts and an artist-in-residency program.

The 11-acre venue is scheduled to open in early 2020.