Lawyer Gerald Lippes will be one of two honorees receiving a Knox Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Arts Council in Buffalo and Erie County's annual Arts Awards luncheon next month.

The luncheon, set for March 14 at the Statler Golden Ballroom, is sponsored by M&T Bank and the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. The keynote speaker will be Tom Cochran, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Lippes and fellow Knox Award-winner Emmanuel "Manny" Fried will be honored along with individual artists, arts organizations and supporters.

The Knox Award for Lifetime Achievement, the organization's highest honor, was established in 1998 and is only awarded in special cases, to people who have shown "exceptional" support.

Lippes, founder and senior partner of the Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman LLP law firm, serves on the boards of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the New York State Council on the Arts and the University at Buffalo Foundation. Lippes and his late wife, Sandra, funded a graduate degree program in arts administration at the University at Buffalo and helped establish the Lippes Concert Hall at Slee Concert Hall at UB's North Campus.

Fried is a playwright, novelist, actor, English professor emeritus and labor organizer whose professional credits date to 1928. He is founder of the Buffalo Literary Center and the Western New York Playwrights Workshop and is credited with producing more than a dozen plays. While working at the Curtiss aircraft plant, he also became intimately involved in union organizing activities.

Other awards to be presented include: Outstanding Arts Administrator, Anthony Conte, CEO of Shea's Performing Arts Center; Business Award, Buffalo Spree; Outstanding Arts Supporter, Maris Battaglia, founder of the American Academy of Ballet; Outstanding Individual Artist, Roland Martin, music director, Freudig Singers of Western New York; Outstanding Arts Organization, The Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus; and Special Merit Award, Thomas Kazmierczak III, executive director, Lancaster Opera House.

For tickets or more information, call 856-7520 or go to www.artsbuffalo.org.