TIMES, REGISTER RECEIVE ’85 ARTS ALLIANCE AWARD

The Los Angeles Times’ Orange County Edition and the Orange County Register are recipients of the Orange County Arts Alliance’s 1985 Meritorious Achievement for the Arts Award, the alliance announced Thursday.

The presentation was made at the alliance’s annual “State of the Arts” conference Thursday at the Irvine Hilton Hotel. Accepting the honors were Narda Zacchino, editor of The Times’ Orange County Edition, and N. Christian Anderson, editor of the Register.

This is the first time the alliance has named co-winners since the award was instituted in 1981. Previous recipients were Frank Hodsoll, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (1984); Disneyland (1983); C. J. Segerstrom & Sons (1982), and business executive Harriette Witmer (1981).

According to the alliance, the award is given “to acknowledge individuals or entities whose energies and leadership have contributed in outstanding ways to the visibility, the viability and the excellence of Orange County’s cultural environment.”

The Times and the Register were selected this year, alliance president Patti-Gene Sampson said, because of the two newspapers’ “exceptionally strong backing of the arts in covering and interpreting the arts and in significant financial support.”

The newspapers are also to be commended, Sampson noted, for the “more intensive staffing and other resources now being committed to reporting the arts.”

Both newspapers are represented by major gifts to the Orange County Performing Arts Center campaign. The Times Mirror Foundation--an affiliate of the Times Mirror Co., parent of the Los Angeles Times--has given $1 million. The Register has donated $750,000.