Check it out
by WYNETTE BARTON
Most people assume the present Kyle Library was built by the city and is totally supported by tax dollars. Nope. That’s what happens in some cities, but in Kyle, a group called “Friends of the Kyle Library” started the library, supported it single-handedly for its first 40 years of existence, and continues to support it to the tune of at least $35,000 a year. That’s your tax money that’s being saved, in case you’re wondering.
No one imagined that a building would ever be constructed to house the books that this small group of citizens, usually referred to as FOKL, or simply as “the Friends,” gathered together to start the first library in Kyle. The books, mostly used, and donated from private homes, numbered about 200 when the library opened in the 1960s in the back room of a Center Street store, the Bon Ton, where the new City Hall now stands.
The first jump for the library was a move to a back room in the old City Hall. Still small, but growing, it had found a home of its own. The second jump was a quantum leap. Jack and Burdine Johnson offered to build a library if the town would raise $5,000 for books, and the Friends eagerly agreed.
It wasn’t easy to raise?$5,000 in a town of less than 700 souls, as Kyle was at that time, but the Friends worked tirelessly with bake sales, auctions, and whatever else they could imagine, and made it happen. The library became a reality, opening in 1962 in a fine new stone building stocked with new books and an untrained “librarian” from the Friends group, hired at the princely sum of $20 a month. Helping out in the new library were always the Friends.
The library is now operated by the city and has a genuine librarian and a small paid staff. More than 35,000 books, audio books, DVDs, and videos are available for lending, its 19 public access computers are in constant use, classes are held for people of all ages, and summer reading programs draw hundreds of children in attendance. About 8,000 people pass through its doors each month, a number that’s growing daily.
The first library building was spacious for a town of 700. Now, at 40 times that size, Kyle has found its library quarters not quite so spacious, to say the least. Even with two additions, it has been seriously overcrowded for years, and the new library, with construction to begin in January, will be a monumental change even though the original building will be left behind with nostalgia.
And the Friends? They’re still at it. They operate the Thrift Shop on Lockhart Street for the library’s benefit. Volunteer Ceverene Lackey is at the helm, as she has been since the store first opened in 1989, and Blanche Richmond has been a steady volunteer since it began. There’s now a paid staff as well, since its growth has been as phenomenal as the library’s. Donations of clothes and household goods for resale have made it possible for the Thrift Shop to save up $100,000 (yes, that much, believe it or not) for the new library building, on top of its regular contributions, and there’s more to come.
Besides its main function of supporting the library, the Friends have contributed coats for school kids, clothes vouchers for the homeless, and aid to families whose homes have burned. Soon to begin is a project for working with high schools in training vocational students in retail sales, and an expansion to the current shop is planned for the near future.
The Friends of the Kyle Library is made up community members – like you, for instance. Joining it means plunking down $10 in annual dues and volunteering when and if you have time. There is one annual meeting, though members can attend all planning meetings if they choose. Recently re-vitalized with official non-profit status, the group is actively seeking new members, new ideas, and greater community involvement in activities that make Kyle a better place to live.
Interested? Call the Thrift Shop (268-1036) or the Kyle Library (268-7411) and leave your name and phone number. Someone will contact you. A little help goes a long way in the Friends organization. Joining is one of those things that will make you feel good.
