Sunday, February 24, 2013

MAKING THE NEWS IN ST TAMMANY PARISH

 THE FOUNDATION'S PROJECT HONORING WALKER PERCY MAKING THE NEWS

     The Foundation's dinner on March 7, featuring Jay Dardenne, to launch our project to celebrate the legacy of Walker Percy is in the news!  Two local radio commentators on WGSO, Jeff Crouere and Maureen O'Brien, interviewed Argiro Morgan, the Foundation's President, about the event as well as the history of the Foundation.  
     The dinner also made the front page of the Times Picayune's Mandeville section on February 27th.  The T-P article "Foundation to Launch Projects Honoring Walker Percy" detailed plans to sell etched pavers for the Walker Percy Serenity Circle patio and  the Walker Percy Reading Room containing a books by Percy and the innumerable books written on his life and literary legacy.  Pavers for the path leading to the Library will also be sold.   The dinner was also featured in the St. Tammany News on Friday, February 22 in an article written by Debbie Glover.
      Some members of the Percy family also have made plans to attend the event.  Seats are filling fast as Keith Young's Steak House has limited seating.  Young's is known for its delicious food.  Diners have a choice of either steak or fish.  
     To attend the evening, which promises to be long remembered,

 CLICK HERE TO PAY WITH PAYPAL ONLINE

Dardenne Dinner
OR send a $ 50.00 check to the Secretary of the Foundation - Ann Shaw - at 404 Twin River Drive, Covington, LA 70433. Checks should be made out to the St. Tammany Library Foundation.
     For more information, contact Ann at 985-373-3501 or Argiro at 985 845 87827.
     We hope to see you at this historic event!




ST. TAMMANY LIBRARY FOUNDATION MARCH 7, 2013 EVENT 

        The St.Tammany Library Foundation will host an exciting event on March 7 at Keith Young's Steak House in Madisonville.  
        Louisiana's Lt. Governor, Jay Dardenne, is the featured speaker and promises a captivating story.  Rebecca Hamilton, Louisiana's State Library Director, will attend.  The Foundation will disclose its plans for a very special project honoring St.Tammany's acclaimed author, Walker Percy.  Some of Percy's family will attend as well as friends of Percy. 
       Don't miss this event in Madisonville at 6:30 PM.  It promises to be a sell out.   Be sure to reserve your place early.  Seats are definitely limited.
      Two radio spots are also coming up on the event.  Tune in Monday morning at 10:30 am at Jeff Crouere's Ringside Politics With a Punch radio show on WGSO, Radio 990.   Councilwoman Maureen O'Brien will cover the event on the MO Show on WGSO also.  Stay tuned for a date and time!
       There was a  well-written and informative article. written by Andy Canulette in the Times Picayune on-line edition on February 20, 2012. Worth reading.  Go to NOLA!  Here is an excerpt from Andy's story.

St. Tammany Library Foundation to launch projects 
honoring Walker Percy

The St. Tammany Library Foundation will hold a dinner March 7 at Keith Young’s Steakhouse in Madisonville. Guest speaker at the dinner will be Louisiana Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne, who is known for his storytelling prowess and dramatic re-enactments of important events in Louisiana history. As Lt. Governor, one of Dardenne’s duties is to oversee the State Library of Louisiana.  The dinner will launch the Foundation's drive to sell etched paving stones for the pathway to the library, honoring contributors by placing their names or the names of their loved ones in a historic marker.

But perhaps most importantly, it will be used as a chance to raise awareness of the foundation’s desire to start several projects that would honor National Book Award winning author Walker Percy.
Percy, who lived in Covington for many years until his death in 1990, is a world-renowned author but is not properly recognized in St. Tammany Parish, said St. Tammany Library Foundation President Argiro Morgan.

The foundation’s idea, she said, is to create a Walker Percy Serenity Circle on the patio of the library. A reading room also would be dedicated to Percy and would include a collection of his works, as well as the books written on his life and literary legacy.“We have nothing right now but a plaque at the Covington Library honoring him,” Morgan said. “If you Google him, you’ll see there is a festival in Ireland dedicated to him. (The University of) North Carolina has all his papers. Loyola (University of New Orleans) has a writing center named for him. We need to do more. It’s only fitting because he spent so much of his life here.”
Percy wrote six novels, beginning in 1961 with “The Moviegoer,” which won the National Book Award for Fiction. Two non-fiction collections of his essays also were published during his lifetime, as were numerous books on his life, writings and philosophies. Among his many honors, in 1989 Percy was awarded the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame, which is bestowed each year “to a Catholic whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.” The same year, the National Endowment for the Humanities chose him to deliver the Jefferson Lecture.
Morgan eagerly awaits the time when today’s generations can sit in the Walker Percy Reading Room to ponder the author’s words.
"We want there to be plenty of space, a comfortable place where people can sit and read and think," said Argiro Morgan of plans to honor Walker Percy.
“We want to work with some of the other places who have honored him,” she said. “We want there to be plenty of space, a comfortable place, where people can sit and read and think.”
Cost to attend the dinner, which begins at 7 p.m., is $50, including the meal. Additional proceeds will benefit the St. Tammany Library Foundation.
Commemorative bricks leading into the library are being sold for $50 each. Pavers to be set in the Walker Percy Serenity Circle will cost more, though a definite figure has not been determined.
Morgan said she hopes the structure of the library building will be complete by April, at which time, work on the interior would begin. The library is being built in the heart of old Madisonville, near the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum.
For more information on the library foundation’s dinner or to purchase a brick, send email to Morgan at argiro@bellsouth.net or to Ann Shaw at shaw6017@bellsouth.net. To find out more about the St. Tammany Library Foundation, go online to www.sttammanylibraryfoundation.org.











Friday, February 1, 2013

OUR NEW LIBRARY IS PROGRESSING AT A RAPID PACE

PROGRESS ON THE NEW LIBRARY IN MADISONVILLE 

Take a drive into Madisonville and view the construction site and make a visit to the 
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum http://lpbmm.org/ while you are there.

 





CELEBRATION OF OUR FALL SOCIALS

OUR INFORMATIVE SOCIALS COME TO A CLOSE!


In the fall, the St. Tammany Library Foundation hosted six informal socials to inform our community about its mission.  They were enormously successful, adding over 70 new members to our cadre of library users and supporters.  Enjoy these photos of the events at Patricia Bonneau's home.

On Thursday, January 31, a Thank You luncheon was hosted by the Foundation and Suzanne Myers.  Suzanne's lovely home in Tchefuncte Estates was a relaxed and lovely setting for the luncheon.
Attending were Rose Manchon, Marie Louise Nix, Nancy Anderson, Patricia Bonneau, Jeannette Fischer, Sandra Juneau, Argiro Morgan, Ann Shaw, Madelon Nohra, and our hostess Suzanne.

Beautiful flowers, arranged by Marie Louise, were selected to blend with the table cloth of Suzanne, and contributed to an atmosphere to warmth and camaraderie.  Those attended enjoyed a delicious luncheon of chicken pasta, Caesar salad, hot bread, strawberry pastries and king cake, accompanied by wine, tea, and coffee.
 Ann Shaw and Arlene Bennett
at one of our Socials

The luncheon was a small way to thank our hostesses for their hospitality and support.  Because of their efforts, the Foundation boasts a membership roll of 70 new members at all levels - benefactors and patrons, non-profits and corporations, sustaining members, and loyal and family and individual members.


Plans are now underway for a new endeavor beginning on March 7.  Stay tuned. 
 Be sure you join the Foundation! http://www.sttammanylibraryfoundation.org/donate.html



All photos by Carrie Lee Schwartz.