 In 1954, Blankenship was selected by Mary Garden for the National Arts Foundation's operatic fellowship, which included a $1,200 stipend and promise of engagements in leading opera houses of France and Italy.Garden, who had auditioned 300 young American singers said that Blankenship was the finest tenor voice she had heard in America.The fellowship included a tour of study at the Vienna Academy of Music from 1955 to 1956, where he earned an opera diploma.