View Canderday's Odyssey medal acceptance speech.
Shortly after graduating from Hendrix with a degree in theatre,
Canerday, a native of Russellville, began her motion picture career
working as a production secretary for the television feature The Tuskegee Airmen. She has since made appearances in feature films, such as Biloxi Blues, One False Move, Sling Blade, October Sky, and Walk the Line. She and others in Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade were collectively nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in the Motion Picture.
Since 2001, Canerday has appeared in numerous productions with the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, The Weekend Theater, the avant-garde troupe Red Octopus, and Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, enriching the quality of arts and entertainment in her home state.
In 2007, Canerday presented An Evening with Natalie Canerday to benefit the Faulkner County Single Parent Scholarship Fund. She has also served on the scholarship selection committee of the THEA Foundation, which awards scholarships to high school seniors for their hard work in the visual and performing arts.
A respected actress, she is regularly invited to be a guest speaker for feature and documentary film festivals across the country, such as the 2006 George Lindsey/UNA Film Festival in Florence, Ala., where she served as a judge.