The Ozarks Small Business Incubator (OzSBI) is hosting an Artist Reception for Dennis Crider on Thursday, January 26 from 5 – 7 pm.  The reception will be held on the second floor of OzSBI, located at 408 Washington Avenue in West Plains, and is open to the public.  The event will honor Dennis Crider and his photography exhibit, titled “39”, will be on display.

Dennis Crider has always had a camera in his hand and, as a child in Wichita, Kansas, he just had to capture the moment on film. During his 39 years as a reporter, photographer and sports editor at the West Plains Daily Quill Newspaper, he captured thousands of moments on film, and 39 of those will appear in this unique display. The highlight of his career occurred 15 years after his retirement. When, on October 19, 2023, he became the 77th person to be inducted into the Missouri Press Association Photojournalism Hall of Fame. The ceremony was held at the State Historical Society’s Center for Missouri Studies in Columbia. Crider was nominated for this award by former Quill Publisher and Editor Frank L. Martin III, who is a member of the Missouri Newspaper Hall of Fame. In light of this honor, Crider decided to show a few of his favorite photographs from his tenure at The Quill. He thumbed through hundreds of pages of bound copies of the newspaper to find dates, then searched through boxes of stored negatives to build the collection. Once he identified the images he wanted, he scanned the negatives, and then downloaded the images to a third-party firm that printed the images on canvas. Each of the 39 prints are available to purchase for only $39. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to OzSBI.

The exhibit is available for viewing in OzSBI’s upstairs gallery through April 2024. Visitors may view the display at the incubator during OzSBI’s business hours, which are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.