New North Webster Library Dedicated
Text and photos by Ray Balogh
InkFreeNews
NORTH WEBSTER — Phil Metcalf, president of the North Webster Community Public Library board of trustees, keynoted a dedication ceremony brimming with positivity on Sunday, Oct. 4, at the new facility downtown on SR 13.
The half-hour invitation-only ceremony, which started at 1:30 p.m., was followed by public tours and an open house of the new library until 4 p.m.
Janette Stackhouse, a library staff member and chaplain of American Legion Post 253 in North Webster, opened the meeting by leading the Pledge of Allegiance and offering a prayer of thanksgiving and supplication for guidance and protection.
She thanked the Almighty for “the blessing this library has already been, and continues to be, to help mold the future.” She asked that the library be “a light against ignorance” and “a safe place where people of all cultures and faiths can find purpose and meaning.”
Metcalf invested the bulk of his remarks in heaping kudos on those involved in bringing the 15-month, $5 million project to fruition, noting the dedication was the facility’s third ceremony, after the groundbreaking on July 31, 2019, and ribbon cutting on July 13 of this year.
“We spent five years trying to figure out what to do,” he said. “We couldn’t build up or out or buy the previous library building.” Metcalf said a timely inspirational gift convinced him to take the plunge of building a new facility. He received a poster from a friend in Saudi Arabia.
The poster read, “If it excites you and scares you at the same time, you probably should do it.”
Metcalf told the assemblage of about 50 attendees, “The purpose of today is the recognize every one of you who had a hand in this. It was a real team effort.
“A library is the last building in a community you don’t need to come in to buy anything,” he said.
“It’s the last democratic space. This project involved stress beyond stress, but I have never seen a group work as well together to the point where all they really wanted to do was serve their community.”
He thanked:
• Michael Kinder & Sons construction company and its vice president of business development, Zach Kessie, who spearheaded the project. He also thanked architect Zach Benedict.
• North Webster Community Center, which hosted the previous library location.
• The Kosciusko County Council, Indiana District 22 Rep. Curt Nisly and the Indiana state legislature.
• The library staff, who performed “countless willing hours, packing and moving while doing curbside service at old library. Our staff is what makes this library,” he said. “The number one answer we get in surveys is, ‘You have got the most friendly staff.’ As far as I’m concerned, they all have lifetime appointments and I hope they stay forever.”
• The 60-plus members of the Friends of the Library. “They are a group of people dedicated in supporting whatever thing we ask them to do,” said Metcalf. “They have held book sales and other projects, and have donated tables and chairs, the digital sign out front and appliances for teaching kitchen. I look forward to the cooking classes.”
• “Queenpin” Helen Leinbach Frank, the library’s director. “Every library needs a Helen,” he said. “She was here every day dealing with decisions. On a day-to-day basis, everything fell on her shoulders.” Frank will be retiring at the end of the year.
The donors commemorated on the Wall of Donors just inside the library’s main entrance. “The hardest thing to do is go out and ask people to donate for something that is just a dream,” Metcalf said. “But in a town of 1,100 people and another 5,500 in the township, they donated over $858,000. That is just mind boggling.”
• The late Suzanne Shock, the matriarch of the original library, which opened in 1978.
Metcalf concluded his remarks by quoting one of his favorite sayings, “When you are part of something special, you become something special.”
“We have changed the face of North Webster and Tippecanoe Township. Each one of you is special. The future looks very, very bright.”
The North Webster Community Public Library is a home-grown institution in the truest sense of the phrase.
The Carnegie Foundation established several libraries in the surrounding communities, but bypassed North Webster because it had no railroad line, a prerequisite for consideration by the philanthropist.
Altruistic denizen Shock took matters into her own hands, opening a volunteer-staffed library with 3,000 donated books in a cramped 18-foot-by-36-foot structure on the Mermaid Festival grounds.
The library, whose goal is to provide for “the past, present and future, all in one place,” steadily grew, and now occupies the new 20,000-square-foot facility that nearly doubles the previous 11,000-square-foot building, which has been demolished.
After the ceremony, Nisly echoed the upbeat reverberations. “This is a magnificent facility, and I look at this as an example of the members of a community seeing a need, stepping up and working together to meet that need.
“The many people involved is very impressive. The information age has really changed the way we process information, and what I see here is the past and present, but also a looking into meeting the need of the future in learning and information.”
Library hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
For more information, call (574) 834-7122 or visit www.nweb.lib.in.us.
And now, a photographic tour of the library: