School kids take lead in saving libraries

ABOVE: Willow Wind students sell baked goods during their fundraiser to keep the library open. The brownies, scones, cookies and muffins were made by the students’ parents. Sarah Hale | For the Tidings FRONT: Willow Wind School students pose with Jim Olney, director of Friends of the Jackson County Library, after raising more than $300 to keep the libraries open. Submitted

As local library supporters wait to see if Washington D.C. can bail out underfunded Jackson County services, some of Ashland's youngest activists are still fighting to keep the library open.

Several Ashland elementary school students have launched campaigns, sort of, to help draw attention to what they say is a valuable governmental service to their education.

"I like to read," said Hannah Whipple, an 8-year-old second grader at Willow Wind Elementary School. "I check out books there all the time. My whole family uses the library."

When Whipple learned that libraries could be closed down, she took matters into her own hands. She began to plan a bake sale to help bail out the financially strapped Jackson County library system.

"Hannah is one of those young souls with a lot of wisdom," her teacher Trisha Mullinnix said. "When she heard about the libraries closing it weighed heavy on her. Because it fell into a budget dilemma, she decided to have a bake sale."

Her bake sale raised $316.54 for the libraries, which need several million more to continue operations.

Mullinnix said after the bake sale, director of the Friends of the Jackson County Libraries Jim Olney came to her class to laud the students for their efforts.

"Jim came and said the libraries would be on because of people like us," she said. "He was very sure that our work was pivotal."

Whipple hopes so.

"It would be really hard if it closed," Whipple said. "I wouldn't be able to check out books. The library at my school doesn't have any books on the animal I'm studying."

At Helman Elementary School, two fifth grade students started a different kind of campaign to save the libraries. Kaialani Niemann and Cheyene Fletcher started a letter writing effort to bring attention to the plight of the libraries.

"We went to storytelling at the library and the [librarian] was very unhappy that libraries were closing," Niemann said. "Cheyenne and I decided to write a letter. She came over to my house. We were brainstorming, then we wrote it down."

The two students then took their letter into school and got 10 of their friends to co-sign.

"The fifth graders at Helman Elementary School are protesting against library closing," reads their letter. "We love our libraries. Without libraries kids may not read as much. I mean, think about it. Many of the kids get their books at the library."

Niemann didn't expect much to come of her letter-writing campaign, and said she chose the word protest carefully. "We wanted a good headline," she said.

A protest, said the 11-year-old, is when "people are really unhappy about something so they decide to do something about it."

Jackson County Libraries are slated to shut down on Friday. There is a bill before President George Bush that would reinstitute funding for at least one year, but the president has vowed to veto the bill because it contains a time line for American troops to withdraw from Iraq.

Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x. 226 or bplain@dailytidings.com.