The time has come to honor the artists who have put South Jersey on the cultural map.

The South Jersey Performing Arts Center on Camden's Waterfront is providing a home for the South Jersey Hall of Fame and is beginning to process nominations for artists who have made a significant cultural contribution.

Directors of five arts centers have agreed to serve on the nominating committee. Preliminary nominations are predictable - film and TV stars, film directors and cultural icons like Walt Whitman.

Who deserves to be in the South Jersey Hall of Fame? I have no argument with Calista Flockhart, Bruce Willis or Michael Landon being honored.

But what have they contributed to the cultural life of South Jersey? Not much.

I hope the committee will look for more than film stars. I hope it will salute the lesser lights who have made a shining contribution to our region's cultural life.

Here are a few people who qualify:

•Lewis Shearer of Oaklyn, who championed choral singing and for four decades directed the chorus that became the Garden State Chorale after his death.

•Lorraine McAdams of Mount Laurel, the late founder and director of the National Ballet of New Jersey who produced the first area production of The Nutcracker.

•Ruth Iversen, who devoted herself to the Burlington County Footlighters as a performer, director and administrator.

•Murray Panitz, principal flute of the Philadelphia Orchestra whose legacy lives on in the hundreds of students he inspired.

•Rene L. Huggins, the late director of the Walt Whitman Cultural Arts Center who provided the leadership that brought the center through hard times.

•Alexei Yudenich, former principal dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet who founded the Children's Ballet and taught dance at Rowan University.

•Marcia Mahone, the Burlington County actress who helped create Foundation Theatre and served on the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the board of the Walnut Street Theatre.

•Gail Greenberg, the historian who served as director of the Camden County Cultural and Heritage Commission and fostered the arts in the area.

•Veda Zuponcic, pianist and professor at Rowan University who founded the Hollybush Festival which for a decade brought a blaze of cultural glory to the region.

•Paul Stankard, glass artist from Mantua whose work has gained him international recognition.

•Lucy Glick of Haddonfield whose acrylic paintings revealed her sensitive eye.

These are a handful of the artists who have enriched our lives by working right here in South Jersey. They should claim a place of honor in the South Jersey Hall of Fame.

Readers are invited to fax or e-mail their nominees, which will be forwarded to the committee.

Robert Baxter is the arts critic for the Courier-Post. He can be reached by telephone at (856) 486-2436 or by fax at ( 856) 663-2831 and by e-mail at rbaxter@courierpostonline. com.