Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine, 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 wasn't 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, Lori 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. It was, 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 another at
least 25 years. Yeah, and then probably longer. And more than that. 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, we're 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, we don't, 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 will 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. And so many people, it's not important. Sean Woods, the police chief in
Nekusa was going through some files. And this was late last fall. And he found all these pictures
of Nekusa 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 Nekusa history. And to see how the
community changed, the person who took those pictures in 1979 never thought that Nekusa landscape
would change that much. 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 are 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 just as important.
And I appreciate that and appreciate you sharing that with us. Thank you.
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's are something you should save her.
You shouldn't 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 Sweetseps. So we've been trying to focus on local
businesses and giving people a little chance to sample them because it's sometimes scary.
Oh yeah. 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 in making it even
better. Yes. That's really cool to hear. There are also winter tech classes available for people as
well. What do I 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 that 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 a few times, they have that skill. So 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.
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. If 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 acoustic 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, you know,
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 providing 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. Yeah. And to be able to check in with them, because a lot of times their family does live
in the area. Yeah. 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
who's 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
member 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. And it again speaks
to why our libraries remain on our community hub. Individual thinking and unique thinking.
So many, I say this a little bit of having a mom that spent decades at the working at a library.
But I'm not even if I'm a little biased. 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. You 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.
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. I'm one of these people.
I don't like saying no to office. I'm a, yes, I will 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 percent increase. That's incredible.
Yeah. It is. We are beyond happy with that. Well, and it shows the need for that then.
Yes. You know, that 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?
Sure. 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 2400. Yeah, that's true. And we had 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
and 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 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, you know, three dozen four dozen books and trying to keep him in series
order. And she goes, can we print out a piece of paper? We don't have Romana 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 publish or authors.
And Wisconsin reads which are all of our Wisconsin authors. And each one 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 out 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 really like it makes sense when I take a step back and
think about it. Because I would think that the 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.
They're 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 Darly and director of Charles and Joanne Lister Library in Nacusa. And one
of the 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 with 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 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.
As we're wrapping up, Darly, as we mentioned, we're both fans of history. Love 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 at that time 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 figured 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, we could 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 Nacusa. He's active with the Nacusa Fire Department with EMTs.
Very active with veterans organizations. I know he helped organize this veterans on or
night with the Nacusa football team, the Nacusa high school football team, and got the flags for
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 Nacusa. Darla, always
good talking with you. We got to bring you back real soon. Don't be a stranger. Find out more
at NacusaLibrary.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 talk
with you. Thank you for the time. Thank you, James. Have a good afternoon. You too. 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.
