Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Friday, January 31st, 2025.
Have your host James here and we are joined right now by our friend Darla Allen, director
of the Charles and Joe Ann Lester library.
Darla, it's been too long.
How you doing?
I am doing great.
The library is doing well.
Things are going fantastic.
Darla, we've got a bunch to cover because, you know, not just certainly all of our local
libraries.
You guys are so great at giving the communities things to do, our local hubs.
It's great in 2025 to be able to say that, you know, our libraries are still our local
hubs and the workers like you, people like you in the industry are helping keep that alive.
We're going to touch on some of that in a moment.
But if you don't mind, have a solemn place to start, but a place that we felt was necessary.
Yes.
So many of you know Marshall Beeler passed away late last week and his memorial services
are being held today in Port Edwards and Marshall was so wonderful.
He was a driving force for preserving our local history.
He was wonderful to work with.
Laurie Brost, who was at the Southwood County Historical Society, worked with Marshall extensively
and through that I got to meet Marshall and work with him.
The local history stories he shared with me about the mills and just how Port Edwards
developed and all of the movers and shakers back in the day, I relished listening to
those stories and it's been so neat because over the years, I've been at Nacusa for 17
years.
I've been able to share those stories with all the school kids that come in and they're,
how do you know this?
Where has this written down?
It's in my head.
It's from Marshall and it's been wonderful because stories of different strikes in a mill
and how those affected the communities and you'd look at different pictures and he could
identify everyone in the picture.
He was amazing and it's such an honor because he shared those stories with me and they often
say, you know, when people die twice, they die the first time when you physically die and
then the second time when people stop saying your name and I'm like, I have Marshall's
name.
These kids here, he's going to live for at least 25 years.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And then probably longer.
But and it's neat because to share these stories with the kids, they're fascinated by it.
They love the local history.
So it is a very sad day.
Marshall lived a long life, a fantastically interesting life and just so many people
held him in such high regard and high respect, that is a sign of a life well lived.
Well said and appreciation to Marshall and his legacy and what he did in telling those
stories and everything.
And it's part of why it's so important that not only we encourage that more out of our
community members and especially our long time community members and know these stories,
but we keep these stories alive.
Like you said, repeating these stories and telling them the younger people and then they
go on and tell those stories.
That's how we keep our history alive and this is our history.
This is important.
We know for a fact, especially, you know, being kids ourselves, history is interesting
to us and these kids are sponges.
They're looking for these things.
You tell them this and chances are they'll be telling it to somebody when they're older.
And it always interests me because there'll be people that say, well, I never liked
history.
And how can you not like history, these are the stories of people.
And Marshall was so visionary in a sense that he saw the importance of preserving our
history while we were living it.
Yes.
So many people, it's not important.
Sean Woods, the police chief in Nacusa was going through some files and this was late
last fall and he found all these pictures of Nacusa that someone took in the late 70s
and early 80s and he's like, you might want these.
And so I've saved them because we have a large binder of Nacusa history and to see how
the community changed.
The person who took those pictures in 1979 never thought that the Kusa landscape would
change that much.
Sure.
But it has.
And you have these pictures and people think it's not a big deal.
Your local libraries, your local historical societies love that sort of stuff.
And with that, I do want to send a shout out to our friends over at their store point
boss who keep history alive over there.
Our local news amp here in the South of County, museum and so many of these people, like
you said, keeping history alive.
And individuals like you and Marshall and these people that keep these stories going and
everything.
It's important and I appreciate that and appreciate you sharing that with us.
Something that we're really proud of over there is the winter reading program.
I want to start there with you, Darla, if you don't mind.
So we have a winter reading program and it started last year.
We've always done a winter reading program for adults and we try to figure out a different
way to do it.
We had been doing a bingo card and we decided to try something different and it's called
stories to save her.
And so, you know, a book star, something you should save her.
You should be rushing through them.
You should take time and read them and just enjoy the act of reading.
So we have this program.
You read a book.
You complete a very short book summary or book review and then every week you get entered
into a drawing and we have different food prizes.
So you might get lunch at a local establishment or a slice of pie.
We went to Ruby Reds and got some nice snacks.
We stopped at Sweet Sib so we've been trying to focus on local businesses and giving people
a little chance to sample them because it's sometimes scary or it's out of your routine.
Well, if you get a little gift certificate, you might break out of that routine and support
another new local business.
What a great tie-in.
That's fantastic.
That is a really cool idea.
It's taking a good idea, I feel like, and making it even better.
That's really cool to hear.
There are also winter tech classes available for people as well, what I would remind everyone
about.
So one of our staff members loves technology and has really run with this.
And we often have people come in and they have different tech-related questions.
And so starting in February, February 13th, we start with our first class, which is how
did they navigate the Nikusa Library website?
We have a lot of content on there.
How to access the library catalog, what events are going to be coming up?
How to book our meeting room.
That's what we're going to be covering in that.
Then it's how to use a mouse and keyboard, and it may seem intuitive, but it's not.
How to search on Google.
How to stay safe on the internet.
How to avoid scams.
How to take pictures on your cell phone.
That is easy for a lot of the younger generations, but some older people have a difficult time.
And once they learn how to do it and are able to practice it a few times, they have that
skill.
We are excited.
These run from February 13th through June 5th, it's every other Thursday.
I love the details and the amount of classes and the different categories you're covering.
Here I feel like you got all bases covered when it comes to that.
And certainly it's important nowadays.
We're only getting more and more tech-friendly, tech-centric as a society.
We want our senior individuals to be able to enjoy the net and all the different things
for it.
I'm sitting there with my friends and I'm a senior and I want to know who won the World
Series in 57 or something like that.
I want to be able to look it up.
All that kind of thing.
Those are all great resources and great things to keep you busy or just fun to do, but I value
so much the idea of not just giving these individuals an opportunity to learn this, but
a safe environment to do it, a friendly environment.
There is no judgment, there is no.
Those are all great questions no matter what you're asking and a lot of that.
The idea too of what we see more and more and I bring this up because I think it needs
attention more and more is the isolation that not just us as individuals, but especially
our seniors are going through.
In rural communities like ours, rapids and Aku support, Edwards, any of these places.
So giving them an opportunity to have more connections, to more conversations, whether
it's part of this class or it's something that they meet somebody that has a hobby they
have in another state or something.
Whatever it is, giving them more opportunities to enjoy life, like they deserve it.
They've earned it.
They're the trailblazers.
The reason we're here, this is the least we can do.
I think it's a really cool program.
Thank you.
And I'm glad you brought up our seniors and experience isolation, especially in the winter
months with the roads not being great.
We've been fortunate this year.
We do offer dropping off materials.
I have some low vision community members.
I have some elderly community members that aren't comfortable driving.
They can call the library.
We can put books on hold.
I often will go after I'm done with work and deliver materials just to keep them in
the loop and keep provide them with materials.
But we also have the libraries are unique because a lot of elderly or older community members
will stop in on a weekly basis.
We know our patrons.
And to be able to check in with them, because a lot of times their family does live in the
area.
And we also have added with our Wi-Fi out access point, which I know we'll get into
in a few minutes.
But one of the neat stories I had about that is we had a patron whose parent is older.
And the family is scattered across the country.
And he came and he goes, can you help me get my Android phone to use FaceTime?
And so we were able to figure that out.
And they don't have internet at their house.
So he comes to the library and he is able to use our Wi-Fi on like a Sunday afternoon.
Go call his family members.
And his mom can talk to the family members in different areas.
How great is that?
Oh, that's awesome.
And it's one of those stories that don't get told often enough.
It's like, well, what do you need in that outdoor Wi-Fi point?
Things like that.
Yeah.
Well, and I mean, that is a great story.
And I'm happy for him and other individuals that couldn't use that service.
But I also flipped this back on you and your staff and to think of something like that.
That deserves as much credit.
That's just as cool.
I don't know that that's necessarily something that is in the blueprint or anything of the
work when you took the job, but I think it's really cool to think of those things.
It again speaks to why our libraries remain or want our community hub.
Individual thinking and unique thinking is so many, you know, I say this a little bit
of having a mom that spent, you know, decades at the working at a library.
But I'm not, even if I'm a little biased, I don't mean I'm wrong.
It's part of the reason how we keep not only libraries relevant and keep people coming
to them, but we keep our communities healthy.
We keep our, whether we're talking mental health or just safety in general.
We mentioned that being able to check up on them and then being able to reach out to
people, just from Wi-Fi, just from having Wi-Fi more available than it would be otherwise.
That really is above and beyond.
That's great.
Well, I always say that the libraries are the community living room.
Everyone is welcome.
You do need to behave.
But also the libraries are so important because it is one of the few places where we preserve
the community culture, like who the community is, what the community is, what they value.
That is all part of the library.
If you notice, when there are any invading armies, throughout history, one of the first
places they would go in to destroy, where the libraries, why destroy the culture, destroy
the community's identity, destroy their history, destroy their language.
So I feel very strongly about libraries and communities and the role we play.
Well said.
Yeah.
And it couldn't agree with you more.
You mentioned the extended Wi-Fi, just to cover the details of that before we move on.
That is a pretty cool, that's a big increase with that.
Oh, it's fantastic.
So in 2023, we had one Wi-Fi access point, which served the inside the library and just
outside the front doors of the library.
And we had about 12,000 uses in late November of 2023.
Self-central contact.
It means as we have the second access point, would you be interested?
I said, why not?
Yeah, definitely.
Because I'm one of these people.
I don't like saying no to office.
I'm a, yes, and we'll figure it out.
So we added the second outdoor Wi-Fi access point.
It covers the whole parking lot.
And our Wi-Fi uses went from 12,600 to 67,800 in the course of a year.
Wow.
That's over a 400% increase.
That's incredible.
It is.
We are beyond happy with that.
Well, and it shows the need for that then.
Yes.
That was a really smart idea.
That was really useful.
That the numbers speak for themselves there.
That's really impressive.
And again, great idea to do that.
So it's interesting because our library funding is based on circulation.
How many books we circulate?
But that's only one part of the puzzle of what libraries provide.
And so our circulation may not be huge, but we had 56,000 people come into the library
last year in the Kusa, a town of about 2,400.
Yeah, that's true.
And we had 60, almost 68,000 Wi-Fi uses.
Those are people who may never check out a single book.
We have people that use the meeting rooms.
We have our meeting rooms booked almost every day.
Those are also people that may not be checking out a book, but it's that idea of library
as a third place.
Right.
Yeah.
You can come in.
You can use our resources.
You can use our facilities.
You can make photocopies.
Send in your time sheets.
Any paperwork we will hope you send in.
Make sure you can scan the email.
They are not checking out a book, but the service we provide is so invaluable to so many
in community.
Well, and, you know, any, the smartest businesses are able to pivot or able to adapt.
But as I say that, but I actually, in this chair and being spoiled in this job and getting
to talk to so many people, I really feel like our nonprofits are way better at this than
like the business world as far as pivoting, adapting.
And I think in part because you have to be, but also because of the individuals that
get into this line of work, I think there's just something about creatives and getting into
this world and what you can bring to it, like the things we're talking about here and
another thing that I've been dying to talk to you about since you showed it to me in
our pre-game.
I really think this is cool and unique to our, our, our, our Charles and Joanne Lester
library.
Yes.
To the best of my knowledge, we are the only library in the Soul Central system that is
doing this.
And so it started out as a staff member, voicing frustration because we'd have people
come in and you're like, what's the next John Sanford book?
John Sanford has a, you know, three dozen, four dozen books and trying to keep them in
series order.
And she goes, can we print out a piece of paper?
We don't have room on the shelves.
And so it was a collaborative process where we were able to figure out a shelf marker.
And so we have two subject matters.
We have favorite authors, which are your high volume, published, or authors.
And Wisconsin reads, which are all of our Wisconsin authors.
And each of these shelf markers has a QR code.
So if you have a smartphone, you can scan that.
It talks about the author, all of their books in series order because they have multiple
series.
And then other authors, this author likes and authors at right in a similar style.
So you may not have a smartphone, we come into the library.
We have the smartphone, we have an iPad.
So if you are interested, my staff is absolutely fantastic about, we can help you with this.
Let's go up to the stacks.
And to what we were talking about before with winter tech classes, this is a great way to
put those things you learn into action and check them out.
And it is really unique.
It is really a cool thing to be able to just put your camera right there, get that, go
right to the website and see all this information.
I was joking with Darly, you guys are maybe the first, but you will not be the last.
This is too cool to not see in most of our libraries, but really proud that it's showing
up here first.
And I think actually it makes sense when I take a step back and think about it.
Because I would think that that library in particular could be really benefited by something
like this.
You mentioned the space and just not having the space that you to be able to have some
of these things.
Well then, thankfully you got the convenience of this and it's a great resource.
Well, then the cool thing is, as I said, it started out with voicing a frustration that
patrons were feeling and the staff member relays it to us.
And then we brainstorm.
I have a great staff and figuring out these things and they're not huge things or not things
that cost a lot of money, but it's, I always try to tell myself we're a small library
with a small budget.
But let's learn how to do the small things really, really well.
We're speaking with Darler and director of Charles and Joanne Lister Library in Nacusa and
wanted to make sure that people knew about story times.
It's a Wednesday event that we can check out.
So yes, we have a preschool story time at 10 a.m.
Everyone is welcome.
I mean, you don't have to be a preschooler, but we do a little craft.
We have a story, multiple stories.
And parents show up early.
We have a great kids play area.
So it's usually an hour, hour and 15 minute event.
Stories take up about a half hour.
It's a great way to connect with other parents and guardians and kids.
So if you are a person who is just starting out their family, you don't know a lot of people
in the area.
The library is a great place to start.
Yeah, that's a great point.
And a really nice opportunity for families to be able to do all those things you said.
Along with getting out of the house sometimes, it's just nice being able to do that sometimes
too.
And as we're wrapping up, Darla, you know, as we've mentioned, we're both fans of history.
Love a local history.
You had something you wanted to share with us.
So I was a guardian on the May 2023 honor flight with my father.
So the never forgotten honor flight that flies out of center Wisconsin.
And if you've never been to the welcome home for that, it is amazing.
I mean, if you need an emotional pick me up, run up to center Wisconsin airport in
Mozini because it is just heartwarming to see how these veterans, they are like teenagers
again.
And let me tell you, these older veterans, they go back to the hotel.
There's a little after part of the session.
They are going till four in the morning like I was wrecked after it.
It was amazing.
But it is, that ties in where I had, my father was a huge lover of history and always
quiz me on civil war activities.
And so for the better part of a year, I was trying to figure out how do I honor veterans
and I have ideas.
We do a memorial day display of our veterans who have been deceased.
We do a veterans day display of all of the veterans in our community.
And I finally figure it out like, you know, let's take the pictures that I've collected
and let's do a little weekly feature.
So we have never forgotten Friday on our Facebook page.
And every week, I've tried to feature a different veteran.
One week it'll be a veteran who is deceased.
And then the next week we do a veteran that is alive.
So we had a two part series with Keith Warner and Lawrence Spice.
That was the last two weeks, really.
And Keith Warner was a World War II veteran who was killed in action about the time of
battle over the bulge.
And his best friend Lawrence Spice had enlisted with him.
Keith was drafted.
Lawrence enlisted because he didn't want his best friend to go alone.
And in an interview, he gave with a daily tribune when he was about 72.
He said, you know, the one piece of a device I would give to young people is don't enlist
with a friend because when one of you come, when only one of you comes back, it's just
too hard.
And he enlisted at 20, 50 some years later, he was still that 20 year old who had lost
his best friend.
It was just heart wrenching to read.
And so every week, I do a different feature today.
I just posted a story about Todd Boudreau, who is a younger person.
He lives in Nakusa.
He's active with the Nakusa Fire Department with EMTs, very active with veterans organizations.
I know he helped organize this veterans honor night with the Nakusa football team, the
Nakusa High School football team, and got the flags for all the service, all the different
military branches and Todd's just a really awesome guy.
So he is this week's feature.
Very cool.
I encourage you to find out about these and thank you again for real quick for doing this,
for thinking of this.
Again, another wonderful above and beyond unique idea that you guys are doing over there
at the Charles and Joanne Lester Library in Nakusa.
Darla, always good talking with you.
We got to bring you back real soon, don't be a stranger.
Find out more at NakusaLibrary.com and go to the website.
And as she mentioned, the Facebook page, go there, type that in your search bar, like that
page, keep up the date and the things they are doing.
And be sure to share the events and our soldier stories and so many of these on your Facebook
page.
You just never know who might see it otherwise.
Exactly.
Darla, really good talking with you.
Thank you for the time.
Thank you, James.
Have a good afternoon.
And thank you everybody for joining us, thanks to all of our guests.
And of course, a big thank you to the heart of this station, Pam Hilke, and the amazing
scheduling she does week in a week out.
Well, a more midday magazine for you next week, right here at WFHR.
