HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-11-26 NP honors library pioneer (Palm Beach Post)NORTH PALS' BEACH PU U C LLBnA `
e
THE PALM E
N. Palm honors library pioneer
By hngel Bedltgratis Zeal
Nairn Beach Post ski! xrthr
Resolution No. 55-98 of the village of
North Palm Beach bestowed the title of
Member Emeritus of the Library Advisory
Board upon Thelma Obert.
Passed last month by the village council,
the resolution was almost 40 years in the
making.
In 1961, Obeli, a Northern transplant and
retired school principal, was the driving force
behind what is now the North Palm Beach
Public Library, said Nancy Moore, the cur-
rent library director. Obert and a group of
about ` " locals decided the town should have
a library and investigated the need and finan-
cial requirements of starting one. Two years
later, the group farmed the North Palm
Beach Library Society with Mrs. j, Edwin
Oben as president.
Moore said the library began in a room of
the Winter Club of the Harry Kelsey Country
Club with 2,800 volumes. The ociety held
masquerade halls, hock reviews and other
fund-raisers to support it and supplied the
warm bodies to run it,
A few years later, the society handed the
library with its collection of about 12,000
volumes over to the village. In 1969, it moved
into its current location on Anchorage Drive.
Besides instigating its creation, (bert,
now in her 90s, served on the library- advisory
beard until recently, She held the positions of
vice chairman and chairman.
Though the library society is long gone, a
second group of volunteers and supporters of
the ]ibrary formed in 1981, Friends of the
Library Inc. now holds the fund-raisers and
supplies the volunteers. Each year, they
sponsor a luncheon with a guest author, This
year's event Feb. 15 will have Patrick Smith,
who wrote Angel Cily and A Land Remem-
bered. For more information, call 848-0445.
orates one pup frorn each litter to the
-
Heymann, a Labrador retriever, is now a
helper for Nancy Romaine of New Jersey.
The dog wirr help Rornairie open doors
and pick up dropped objects.
up with Nancy Romaine of New Jersey.
Romaine has Frederick ataxia, a degenerative
hereditary disease that damages the spinal
cord. With Heymann by her side opening
doors and picking up dropped objects, Ro-
maine can take a job with a computer compa-
ny.
And though Stump said he wouldn't, he
decided to volunteer for a second year as a
puppy raises.
"it just seemed like the right thing to do,"
Stump said. "`l never understood the attach-
ment people get to animals. 1 realried it after
he (Heymann) was gone."
Heyrnann's breeder, flct &a Sheekey of
Palm City, has a chocolate Lab picked out
from a recent litter for Stump. 5heekey
d