ST. TAMMANY CELEBRATES THE OPENING OF OUR NEW STATE-OF-THE-ART LIBRARY IN MADISONVILLE

Architects rendering of the  Walker Percy Serenity Circle
at the St. Tammany Library, Madisonville 

The sun beamed on September 5, when and the incredibly beautiful St. Tammany 

Public Library in Madisonville opened.  The building is unique.  Each side is 

different; each is an aesthetic delight; each complements the unique atmosphere of 

the town of Madisonville.

The library sits on 1.5 acres of beautiful ground across from the Maritime Museum.  

Its vistas are beautiful and inside the settings are comfortable and inviting.  Rows 

of computer terminals, a large technological lab for classes and demonstrations, a 

children's area with its own storybook and craft room and its own kid-sized entry 

door, an inviting space for teens, and many quiet nooks for reading, thinking, and 

contemplating for all library users.

The View from the Walk Percy Reading Room at the Madisonville Library

No library of the 21st century can be without the technology we are need for 

creative work, research and communication.  The Madisonville Branch has banks 

of computers for general use and a full technology lab for training classes in data 

resources, Microsoft programs, genealogy, business and academic research.

President Pat Brister and Mayor of Madisonville Peter Gitz cut the large red ribbon 

to open the doors to the public. Many other public dignitaries and the Director of the 

State Library, Rebecca Hamilton, were there to celebrate with us.

 On September 7 a Gala Opening followed and over 1600 people came!  The large 

meeting room was overfilled with children who delighted in the antics of Papillion   

The teens enjoyed a pizza party with the best selling author Claudia Grey, and adults 

had the opportunity to hear and meet the New York Times best selling author Erica 

The Foundation had a welcoming table and raffled a framed and signed poster 

by the artist Tammie Morris.  The Junior League of Covington also contributed 

a wonderful basket of goodies, and two books, one on the Bicentennial of St. 

Tammany and a Roux-to-Do cookbook.

The Foundation has fantastic plans to enhance the aesthetic beauty of the library.  

Under one of the oak trees on the side of the library, a patio, soon to be constructed, 

will be dedicated as the “Walker Percy Serenity Circle,” named to memorialize our 

acclaimed St. Tammany writer, Walker Percy.

The Foundation is offering all citizens an opportunity to create a lasting tribute 

to their own loved ones or to any who have played important parts in their 

own lives within the patio.  We offer engraved bricks of various sizes for 

engraving.  We also hope that sponsors can be found for the benches and markers 

featuring the names of Percy’s acclaimed novels.  We are also planning a statue 

of Percy, sitting on one of the benches in the patio.  Go to our website - http://

www.sttammanylibraryfoundation.org on our home page to learn more and to 

choose how you wish to play a part of this permanent and historic endeavor.

AND DON’T FORGET!

December 1 is the date to renew your membership in the Foundation.  We have 

accomplished much within one year – and we promise to continue to make a 

mark for literacy in the future.  Anyone joining after August 2013 will have their 

membership automatically extended through December 2014.

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY HOSTS WALKER PERCY SEMINAR

Some members of the Foundation would be interested in attending the 21^st Century Conference on Walker Percy at Loyola University on October 11 and October 12, 2013.  The Seminar is sponsored by the Walker Percy Center for Writing and Publishing.

Inspired by Walker Percy’s book, Lost in the Cosmos, will explore the themes generated by Percy’s lively and satirical analysis of the modern condition.

Paul Elie will be the keynote speaker on Friday evening.  Actor Tom Key will perform a one-person show inspired by the book on Saturday evening.  There will be 15 daytime panels on Friday and Saturday covering topics such as alienation, language, authenticity and the failure of “self-help.”

The seminar is entitled

STILL LOST IN THE COSMOS

For further information, or to pre-register go to http://www.loyono.edu/spc/conference OR E-MAIL SPC@LOYNO.EDU

YOU CAN REGISTER AT THE DOOR.  For more information, e-mail wpc@loyno.edu or call (504) 864-7401.

INTERESTED IN A FICTION WRITING COURSE

Stephen Rea, originally from Belfast, and author of "Finn McCool's Football Club: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead" is teaching a fiction-writing course at the Walker Percy Center at Loyola University this fall.  Classes are open anyone in the community and are suitable for novice writers and published authors alike. The eight-week-course begins on September 17 and will be held every Tuesday from 7-9 p.m.

All details are here: http://loyno.edu/wpc/loyola-writing-institute

A SCULPTOR COMMISSIONED FOR THE "SERENITY CIRCLE"

BILL BINNINGS, VISUAL ARTIST OF THE YEAR OF ST. TAMMANY PARISH,

COMMISSIONED FOR SCULPTURE OF WALKER PERCY

By 2014, in the garden patio next to the St. Tammany Library in Covington, soon will have an impressive sculpture of the St. Tammany icon, Walker Percy, relaxing on one of the Serenity Patio’s benches, accompanied by his little dog, Sweet Pea.

After a number of months of interviews and study, the St. Tammany Library Foundation awarded the commission to Bill Binnings, whose bronze works are known throughout Louisiana and who has recently also been represented in the Reflection Gallery of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Bill Binnings received his MFA in Sculpture/Foundry from Ohio State University.  His major commissions include a fountain installation, “New Morning,” at Christwood Retirement Center in Covington, two bronze sculptures in the Preservation Plaza for the St. Tammany School Board, the “Mel Ott Memorial” in Greta, the “Good Samaritan” monument to first responders in Chalmette, and “The Youthful Teacher” at the Alabama Institute of the Deaf and Blind.  He has a work in Buffalo, New York, entitled “Angel Messengers,” and an “Isadora Series” in the Miriam Beranger Memorial Garden in Red Bluff, LA.  Additionally, a short drive to Ponchatoula, LA will give you the opportunity to view “The Horticulture Lesson” and his monument to Native Americans, “The Natural Conservationist," both stunning depictions of the history of the area. Works by Bill Binnings can also been seen in Buffalo, New York, and Baltimore,  Maryland.

Bill has been interviewed on local television and radio stations and on FOX 8 TV.  Inside Northside, and Louisiana Homes and Gardens have featured articles on his sculpture and career.   Binnings’ work can also be found in private and corporate venues in regional, national, and international collections.

Bill was a personal friend of Walker Percy, accompanying him weekly for lunch at Bechac’s, the Mandeville lakefront restaurant, where Walker gathered artists and writers to talk and share their outlooks and creative thoughts each week.

The Foundation will be seeking funding from the sale of bricks and from significant donors to fund the sculpture.  By 2014 we hope to have a bronze statue in the gardens of the new St. Tammany Parish Library in Madisonville.  It will be a destination venue for tourists, visitors, and the residents of our community.

Help make it possible!  Buy a brick and memorialize someone you love in a historic monument!

IMPORTANT DATES COMING UP!

 MARK YOUR CALENDAR!

 Tuesday, October 15, 2013 AT 6:30 PM will be the date of our second Annual Meeting of the membership of the St. Tammany Library Foundation at the Madisonville Branch in the large meeting room. 

At the meeting you will get a complete update on our accomplishments during the past year and will have an opportunity to ask questions, give the Board your feedback, and to sign up for committee work. 

Most importantly, you will have the chance to elect members of the Board of Directors for 2013-2014.  Our Bylaws calls for a maximum of 15 members.  At present we have 10 members, which, at your pleasure, may be re-elected.

We will have refreshments for our members, but you should let us know if you are coming so we can prepare.

Please respond by Tuesday, October 8.  Send your response to our Secretary

anncshaw@gmail.com. 

PERCY SEMINAR COMING UP AT LOYOLA UNIVERSITY

Some members of the Foundation would be interested in attending the 21^st Century Conference on Walker Percy at Loyola University on October 11 and October 12, 2013.  The Seminar is sponsored by the Walker Percy Center for Wring and Publishing.

Inspired by Walker Percy’s book, Lost in the Cosmos, will explore the themes generated by Percy’s lively and satirical analysis of the modern condition.

Paul Elie will be the keynote speaker on Friday evening.  Actor Tom Key will perform a one-person show inspired by the book on Saturday evening.  There will be 15 daytime panels on Friday and Saturday coving topics such as alienation, language, authenticity and the failure of “self-help.”

The name of the seminar is - 

STILL LOST IN THE COSMOS

For further information, or to pre-register go to http://www.loyono.edu/spc/conference OR E-MAIL SPC@LOYNO.EDU

YOU CAN REGISTER AT THE DOOR.  For more information, e-mail wpc@loyno.edu or call (504) 864-7401.

INTERESTED IN A FICTION WRITING COURSE

Stephen Rea, originally from Belfast, and author of "Finn McCool's Football Club: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead" is teaching a fiction-writing course at the Walker Percy Center at Loyola University this fall.  Classes are open anyone in the community and are suitable for novice writers and published authors alike. The eight-week-course begins on September 17 and will be held every Tuesday from 7-9 p.m.

All details are here: http://loyno.edu/wpc/loyola-writing-institute

THOUGHTS ON OPENING THE NEW ST. TAMMANY PUBLIC LIBRARY IN MADISONVILLE

THOUGHTS ON OPENING THE NEW ST. TAMMANY PUBLIC LIBRARY IN MADISONVILLE

Argiro L. Morgan, PhD

           

What do you see before you?  A spacious building, beautiful to behold, surrounded by a natural environment of quiet beauty and suburban space.  But it is more than that.  As a building, it has a history … and its history begins with a ferocious storm, of monumental proportions, ferociously eroding coastlines, engulfing communities, disrupting accustomed patterns of life, destroying lives and displacing peoples.

This storm – Katrina – made the small facility the St. Tammany Parish Library used in Madisonville unusable.  The building, on the historic registry built in 1906, had a varied history.    Initially, the building was a barroom that served sailors and ship builders connected to the then booming maritime trade in Madisonville.  About 1915, it became a bank, which closed after an infamous robbery and then became the first hospital in the parish.  When the hospital closed, it housed a variety of concerns - an electrical shop, an antique store, and an art gallery.   A bond issue in the 1980’s permitted the public library system of St. Tammany to purchase and renovate the historic building and open in 1987 as the Madisonville Branch.  It was charming but it had only 2,000 square feet, only 2 personal computers, one laser printer and photocopier, and a small collection of books and audio and visual DVD’s and cassettes.

But the winds of Katrina and the waters of Lake Pontchartrain made the old library – not only obsolete (which is was prior to Katrina} – but also much too expensive to renovate, especially because it is on the historic registry.

BUT IF ANYONE THINKS THAT LIBRARIES ARE NO LONGER CHERISHED, they evidently missed the outcry from the community who just would not be deprived of a library in the heart of its old town.  Petitions, letters-to-the-editors of local newspapers, appearances and speeches at council meetings and library board meetings bombarded the library administration and its Board of Control.

Opening a small branch outside the city limits did not assuage the community of Madisonville.  The Madisonville leaders on the parish council and in city government also felt the heat.  The Board of Control could not use any savings from its operating budget without a change in state law, which was made possible by Tom Schedler, our present Secretary of State, who was then serving in the state legislature.  Tom got a statute through the legislature and then the work really began.

Without Mayor Peter Gitz, what you see now would also never have occurred.  The Library had savings – as we are good stewards of the public’s funds, but hardly enough to purchase a site to build a state-of-the-art community library.  Mayor Gitz made it possible.  The town of Madisonville had a possible site for a new library, and after considerable lobbying efforts on his part and on the part of Madisonville residents, the St. Tammany Public Library secured the site – and the work of choosing an architectural firm, approving a plan that the community and the library wanted, constructing the building, and doing the myriad of things that had to be accomplished before this ribbon cutting could occur took place.

And here we are!

Ready to open a state of the art library across from the Maritime Museum, a true cultural center with unlimited possibilities.

It has been noted by writers through the ages that libraries are much more than walls and today they are much more than books.  Libraries are a diary of human history and repositories of culture; they are universities without tuition, lighthouses in the great sea of time. They offer sacred spaces for rest and peace, and at times give lifelines to those who need a place of refuge and of hope free from the distractions that bombard us daily.   Libraries are time capsules where past, present, and future co-mingle, and also a space ship beckoning explorers to go to the farthest reaches of the universe. Libraries today are also community living rooms where ideas can be tossed about, writers can polish their craft with the feedback of other writers, newer technologies can be mastered, and inquiries can lead to knowledge and hopefully also to wisdom.

When you enter the doors of this, our newest St. Tammany community library, you will be surprised.  A large technology space to teach the latest tools of communication and research, banks of computers, children and teen spaces, quiet study rooms and a large reading room, soon to be named the Walker Percy Reading Room for solitary contemplation, reading, and thought, and empty walls awaiting art to be hung.  Shelves of books, of course, are there as well as access to eBooks, DVD’s of music and visual art, audio books, foreign language tapes.

Like the history of the Madisonville library’s old site, it seems to recreate the past in newer forms.   It also is a bank – a storehouse of limitless treasures; a lighthouse – beaming paths to new discoveries; in some ways like a hospital for it is a place where creative ideas are sparked and given birth as well as a healing place of peace and tranquility, where our residents can be free from the distractions and anxieties of everyday modern life.  In a way, it builds on the heritage of an electric shop for without the tinkering of young men in garages and their circuit boards, W-Fi and computer technology would not have been at our fingertips. And in someway it is like a barroom – a place of levity, conversation and conviviality. 

I personally would like to publicly thank the Mayor of Madisonville, a true visionary, who saw the connection immediately of a site that would feature both a museum and a library together as a true cultural center.  I would like to thank members of the St. Tammany Council who gave their consent and the staff attorneys Neil Hall and Terry Hand.  And also I am very pleased and proud to thank members of the Library Board of Control – its first Vice President Becky Taylor, its secretary Mary Renau, and the other members who saw this project through – Silvia Muller, Barbara Morgan, John Danjean, and our former member David Stefferou.  Thanks are in order also to our architect John Owens of Sizler, Thompson and Brown and our contractor, Kent Construction and its Project Manager Danny Boesch,                        who did a fantastic job. 

Let me close with a quote from Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss:

… in a country where illiteracy is on the rise

And the economy is sinking low

And chastity is out the window

It is comforting to know

That though the frost is on the pumpkin

And civilization is on the skids

You guys (Librarians) are ferociously working underground

Smuggling books into the hands of kids.

THE NEW LIBRARY OPENS IN MADISONVILLE

The sun beamed on September 5 and so were the smiles on the faces of those who attended the ribbon cutting of the new up-to-the-date St. Tammany Public Library in Madisonville.

Mayor Peter Gitz, Donald Westmoreland, Director of the STPL, Argiro Morgan, President of the St.Tammany Library Board of Control, and Councilman Steve Stefancik

 Many city, parish and state dignitaries attended the ribbon cutting, but the greater number were the citizens of Madisonville, who rushed to find just the perfect book or CD to check out of the new facility.  Over 1500 visitors visited the Open House Celebration on September 7th.

The Children's Area of our new Library

There was not one seat in the large meeting room in the Library where Papillion engaged visiting children with song and story.

The library sits on 1.5 acres of beautiful ground across from the Maritime Museum.  Its vistas are beautiful and inside the settings are comfortable and inviting.  Rows of computer terminals, a large technological lab for classes and demonstrations, a children's area with its own storybook and craft room with its own kid-sized entry door, a colored space for teens, and many quiet nooks for reading, thinking, and contemplating.

Assistant Director of the STPL, Kelly LaRocca, relaxing in the comfortable seating in the Teen area.

The Foundation had a welcoming table and raffled a framed and signed poster by the artist Tammie Morris.  The Junior League of Covington also contributed a wonderful basket of goodies, and two books, one on the Bicentennial of St. Tammany and a Roux-to-Do cookbook.

Rose Manchon and Sharon Lo Drucker, Board Members of the Library Foundation, manned our welcoming table.

And no library of the 21st century can be without the technology we are mastering for creative endeavors, research, and communication.  The Madisonville Branch of the STPL not only has banks of computers for general use and also a full technology lab for training classes in various data resources, Microsoft programs, genealogy search, business and academic research.

Come visit!  You'll be thrilled.