Click photos to see PAD's first graduating class (above)
and PAD Founders (below)

In 1971 the Phoenix Art Museum scheduled a meeting at Yavapai College in Prescott. At this meeting both a Phoenix Art Museum Docent and a Yavapai College art teacher gave a talk designed to recruit a new group of docents in Prescott for an outreach program. There were no art teachers in elementary schools at that time.

Subsequently, sixteen (16) individuals agreed to become members of a Phoenix Art Museum affiliated group that would be called the Prescott Art Docents (PAD). As far as we know, Prescott Art Docents is the only organization of its kind; one that operates in a more rural area, but is also connected with a major metropolitan art museum.

These new docents were given an intensive year of training by attending weekly lectures in Phoenix. The Prescott Art Docents began in 1972 offering Speakers Bureau Programs to grades 1-6 in Prescott and as far away as Humboldt and Bumble Bee. They acted as guides for the Art Train that came to Prescott in 1972-73.

A few years later the Masterpiece program was instituted by PAD in the Prescott Unified School District. Today the organization also works with the Prescott Public Library, the Prescott Fine Arts Association, Yavapai College, the Phippen Museum, the Smoki Museum, the Sharlot Hall Museum, and the Juvenile Justice System.  PAD also has had representation on the Prescott Area Arts and Humanities Council since 1973.  The Prescott Art Docents have participated in National Docent Symposiums and are now known nationally as the Museum Without Walls.