Letter of support
for county library
This is a letter of support for the heroic efforts made by our public librarian, Fran Smith, to keep the doors of the Webster County Public Library in Eupora open and the heat on despite being denied the allotted funds to pay her day-to-day bills.
Everyone knows about the teachers who sometimes have to buy their own supplies just to have a class. Well the library is no different.
Our library is a gem in the rough. Did you know that our library serves as a testing facility where adults and students can further their degree work in their professions, and that our librarian is a certified proctor and test administrator? I know I and others use it in this capacity.
The library serves our community not only in learning and in research but it touches people’s lives in ways to better themselves. Seniors, students and children all use and learn from the library in ways that are intrinsic and immeasurable.
Recently I read an article in our library about a man who as a baby was found in a Dumpster and later became the CEO of a tech company whose own personal worth is now over $62 million. When asked where did he learn so much, he simply said, “The library.”
You can’t measure the worth of a library based on your personal experience because it touches and inspires us in different ways; often later on and often doing God’s work. If the Eupora library doesn’t have something, it can get it.
It’s unclear why the allotted funds for the library’s day-to-day bills were miscommunicated when the librarian has been paying those bills the same way long before any of the supervisors were elected.
To be clear this is not about finger pointing. This is a letter asking the supervisors to become a friend of the library and to honor its service to the community as a valued part of this community, and to honor its librarian, Fran Smith, for her public service and dedication for keeping it open so the community can benefit.
The 20th Century club knows what service is; so do our churches and third-degree masonic masons. They know that their service touches others in ways that are beyond just the dollars and cents of the bottom line.
So I’m also asking those in those organizations for help; to speak up should you be moved on behalf of the library and for the service it renders.
The library needs to pay its bills, and the board needs to publicly state its verbal support and not make the library its adversary. The library can’t wait until July to where the board will even consider helping it.
Librarian Fran Smith is of unique character in the dedication of service to the public good. We honor her as she is the type of individual that endures personal sacrifice and financial hardship so she can give back to the community. Please lend your voice; Fran shows the kind of dedication of service that makes Eupora attractive to live in.
Blessings,
Michael Drummond Davidson
Walthall
