These people, groups and exhibitions don't fit neatly into categories, but their impact on the cultural scene is deserving of recognition. In a category harder to pick than anyone expected, the Fiberarts Guild's big year, among others, was a source of much debate.

DinoMite Days Public art exhibition
Bill DeWalt, director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History
The Laurel Foundation
Was there anything this past year that brought more smiles to the faces of Pittsburghers and visitors than DinoMite Days? The event, coordinated by Carnegie Museum of Natural History with major funding provided by the Laurel Foundation of Pittsburgh, was modeled after the public art project Cow Parade in Zurich, Switzerland, and similar efforts in other North American cities. DinoMite Days featured artists' concepts of dinosaurs that transformed city streets, office buildings and gardens into outdoor public art exhibits. The dinosaurs were later auctioned, with proceeds going to sponsor-selected beneficiaries and the museum.

Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh
Volunteer members of this nonprofit artist group, founded in the early 1960s, organize "Fiberart International," an exhibition deemed by a national leader in the field the "pre-eminent American forum for fiber art." The current International, the 18th, saw an increase in opening-day attendance of 25 percent over the last and is running 134 days vs. 51 in 2001. More than 30 related exhibitions and events ranging as far as Kent, Ohio, complement the 2004 show, and it's the first to travel, heading for the Museum of Contemporary Arts and Design, New York City.

Rebecca Flora
Executive director, Pittsburgh's Green Building Alliance
As executive director of the alliance since 1997, Rebecca Flora has been an effective advocate for environmentally friendly buildings in Western Pennsylvania and beyond. Her mission is to integrate green building practices in regional development projects, as she and her staff did with the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the PNC Firstside Center and the current Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, among others. In November, Flora broadened the city's international reputation when she and the Alliance hosted the second annual United States Green Building Council conference, which attracted 5,000 people.

In February, the Alliance announced that Pittsburgh leads the country in the number of green-certified commercial/industrial buildings, with 29 such projects completed or in the pipeline in Western Pennsylvania.

Carl Kurlander
Co-founder
Steeltown Entertainment Project
Ideas on getting Pittsburgh a bigger slice of the entertainment pie? He's got a million of 'em. Kurlander, who spent 20 years in Hollywood as a screenwriter/TV writer/producer, started inviting pals to talk to his University of Pittsburgh students. From there, he moved on to Mother's Day luncheons for the moms of writers, directors, producers and actors, co-founding the Steeltown Entertainment Project and helping to organize October's entertainment summit. It brought illustrious expatriates back for a televised session and private brainstorming. Steeltown now has an executive director in Ellen Weiss Kander, an office, Web site (www.steeltownentertainment.org) and lots of plans, including an upcoming screenwriting competition.

Larry Kuzmanko
Director
Allegheny County Parks Department/Special Events
The free outdoor concerts at Hartwood Acres and South Park offer three months' worth of weekly performances by national and local acts in a pastoral setting. The formula for success: headliner talent and fresh air minus the secondhand smoke, cover charges and ticket surcharges. The concerts draw thousands of fans with their picnic baskets, kids and dogs. It's also a showcase for local institutions such as Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Opera and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The county also presents several big band concerts at North and South parks and weekly lunch-hour concerts at the Allegheny County Courthouse courtyard Downtown.

Mark Clayton Southers
Founder/Artistic director,
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre
Producer, Penn Theatre
Southers is a promising playwright in the August Wilson mode who has quickly become a force as encourager of others' works.

He makes the Penn (formerly Penn Avenue) Theatre a home for several small companies, especially his own Pittsburgh Playwrights, which in its first full year produced eight plays in addition to a ground-breaking Festival in Black and White, presenting 12 one-act plays by black playwrights with white directors, or vice-versa.

Southers also produced "August in February," a Byham theater showcase which may become an annual standby.

WYEP-FM
Lee Ferraro, general manager,
Rosemary Welsch, program director, and WYEP staff
The radio market's Adult Album Alternative format turned 30 this year, and continues to grow and influence the music scene on and off the airwaves. This year, public station WYEP-FM (91.3) launched an ambitious fund-raising campaign to help finance a move to its own home on the South Side, where WYEP's building include a performance space. Partnerships with the Three Rivers Arts Festival and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust have launched a concert series, which brings artists to Downtown venues such as the Byham and the Benedum, as well as the festival's performance series, which this year has the likes of Patti Smith, Wilco and Richard Thompson at Point Park for free concerts.