Your Privacy Choices
As described in our Privacy Policy, we collect personal information from your interactions with us and our website, including through cookies and similar technologies. We may also share this personal information with third parties, including advertising partners. We do this in order to show you ads on other websites that are more relevant to your interests and for other reasons outlined in our privacy policy.
Sharing of personal information for targeted advertising based on your interaction on different websites may be considered "sales", "sharing", or "targeted advertising" under certain U.S. state privacy laws. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to opt out of these activities. If you would like to exercise this opt-out right, please follow the instructions below.
If you visit our website with the Global Privacy Control opt-out preference signal enabled, depending on where you are, we will treat this as a request to opt-out of activity that may be considered a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information or other uses that may be considered targeted advertising for the device and browser you used to visit our website.
Test
In the early 1990s, Dr. Jeffrey Walker of Walker’s Rising Stars became involved with a charity established by Dick Clark that supported retired singers in living with dignity. Through that involvement, they were invited to attend the American Music Awards, where they experienced firsthand the power and glamour of the performing arts community—sitting among celebrated artists and meeting performers they had long admired.
At one of those events, they learned about a program that gave talented high school students the opportunity to perform on a major Los Angeles stage—an experience designed to inspire a lifelong commitment to artistic excellence.
That concept left a lasting impression. As a Duke-trained neurosurgeon and father of four children, the founder was frequently approached to support charitable causes. It eventually became clear that the most meaningful contribution would be one rooted in his personal passion for supporting children, education, and the arts.
Education had shaped every aspect of his life—career, identity, and capacity to give back. A lifelong supporter of the arts, he filled his homes in Florida and Telluride with artwork, attended music and film festivals, and watched his daughters devote more than a decade to dance training. Yet he also recognized a troubling trend: while arts education profoundly impacts young lives, arts students often receive limited recognition, and schools increasingly reduce arts programming due to budget constraints and academic performance pressures.
In response, he founded Walker’s Rising Stars, a performing arts scholarship competition that celebrates exceptional high school students in music, theater, dance, visual arts, and vocal performance.
Previously partnered with community sponsors and the Pinellas Education Foundation, the program has awarded over a million dollars in scholarships since it's inception.
Its inaugural performance was held in 2004 at Ruth Eckard Hall, Clearwater, FL for ten years prior to moving to Mahaffey Theater, St Petersburg, FL launching what would become a more than two-decade tradition and a beacon on young talented artists.
The founder is establishing a plan to expand the charity nationally so that all children will have the opportunity to benefit from Walker's Rising Stars' scholarship program.
Being a neurosurgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Walker believes that medicine itself is an art—and that the brain is his canvas. He recognized that he owes all his success to his education. Walker’s Rising Stars was created as a lasting commitment to giving young artists the recognition, encouragement, and opportunity they deserve to pursue their dreams.