County Executive Tom Hickner and Lt. Gov. John Cherry, center, along with Library Director Linda Heemstra, right, lead the lineup of ribbon-cutters at the opening of the new Auburn Branch Library. Spring Comes to the Bay County Library System in Auburn's "Fields of Gold"
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Spring had sprung and it all seemed so simple. So perfect. So different.
Snip, snip, snip, and it was done. The strips of yellow and blue ribbons fluttered to the ground.
The official opening of the renovated Auburn Area Branch Library on Wedensday, April 15 marked a long-awaited step up a long staircase of improvements for the Bay County Library System.
Lt. Gov. John Cherry keynoted about how he and Gov. Jennifer Granholm "want Michigan to be thebest place to live and raise a family" and how libraries like the ones we are building here in Bay County reinforce that effort and "do so much to add to the lives of young people, and old."
The lieutenant governor waxed almost poetic about how in hard times libraries are needed more than ever and quoting author Pete Hamill about how human beings crave the inspiration that books give them.
"The heroes, myths and moral tales from free circulating books are an absolute necessity, another kind of food, a road to the treasure house of the imagination that begins at the public library," he flowered on appropriately.
County Executive Tom Hickner spoke about how libraries are important to economic development and quality of life, noting how they are a vital reinforcement of education.
Library Board Chair Mike Gray spoke about the culmination of a difficult effort and noted that costs of a roof problem last winter will be borne by contractors, not the county.
Gray went down the contractor's checklist: Sage and Pinconning libraries will be next in line for completion, bids will be let in May for the 63,000 square feet of the new main branch library, moving to Battery Park on Center, spanning Jefferson from Madison to Adams.
The Western High Select Choir, directed by Laura Keenan, sang two sweet numbers, one being "Fields of Gold," and then filed out to another performance elsewhere.
Martha Fitzhugh, Co-Chair of the libraries capital campaign along with Don Massnick and community division chair Rev. Andreas Teich, spoke about how the group has raised $1.8 million toward a $3 million goal.
Thomas Ryder, Chair, Bay County Building Authority, and Richard Byrne, Chair, Bay County Board of Commissioners each said a few pertinent words. Everybody helping to coordinate the project was introduced or noted and Project Manager Bob Redmond also got a mention.
Local Pastors Ed Lawrence and David Reed gave the invocation and benediction, respectively.
But it was Agnes Schmidt, author of a local history, Auburn and Williams Township, 1854-2004, who pointed out the most poignant fact of the day. The Auburn-Williams area has had a library for 150 years. She noted that the first settlers, including her English ancestors the Skelton family, established an early library that became a Mecca for pioneers from all around. Nothing has changed in a century and a half.
Everybody streamed out of the meeting room where the remarks had been delivered to the sun-drenched library entrance. There the official ribbon-cutting took place, the yellow and blue streamers fluttering to the ground from the snips with multiple sets of blue scissors wielded by politicians and retiring Library Director Linda Heemstra, beaming brighter than any.
"Ah, spring," exulted County Commissioner Pat Beson, filling his lungs with fresh air and exclaiming unabashedly: "it's my favorite time of year." He commented that he can't wait for the cornfields to surround his Kawkawlin Township home, closing in with green freshness, the tall, tasseled stalks symbolic of a way of life that tops that of the crowded metropolis.
"It's a wonderful time of year," enthused Beson. "People are so different, smiling, laughing. What a contrast after a long, hard winter. I love spring!"
Beson's enthusiasm seemed to be pervasive among the milling crowd, overjoyed to take the librarysystem to another level of accomplishment, of completion, after many conflicts and problems. It was a new spring for libraries in Bay County. After a very long, long winter. You could almost read their minds. Ah, spring! Everybody loved it. At last it was here.
It was a glorious day of speeches, sunshine, streaming ribbons and smiling faces. The song "Fields of Gold" couldn't have been more on point.###
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