Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home Library Director Leona McCann and Librarian Velma Cook said goodbye to the library on April 25 during a retirement reception in their honor.
McCann started working at the Sweet Home Public Library in 1978. Nikki Hines, director for 11 years, hired her. She succeeded Hines as director 25 years ago.
Cook worked at the library from 1980 to 1999 and then again from 2002 to present. During that time, she also worked at Sears, from 1967 to 1993, and then at Lee’s Appliance for 10 years.
McCann has a list of things she’s planning that will keep her busy. Cook is the opposite.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“I’m going to volunteer at schools and help make some ready readers,” McCann said. She also plans to spend time with her grandchildren, twin 4-month-old boys, do a little traveling and take up gardening. She might even volunteer at the library.
Both will miss the library, they said.
“I will miss the cataloging and the people a great deal,” Cook said. “Our patrons are the best around.”
“I’m going to miss the books and the people and the people and the books,” McCann said. “I’ve met so many wonderful people.”
People are really the gist of the whole thing, she said. A woman recently told her that it was because of the library and its Summer Reading Program that her granddaughters, now in their 20s, had learned to read.
It’s not just one person making that happen, McCann said. It’s a team effort.
Last year, the library was finally automated, a long-term goal for McCann. It took so long because resources have always been tight.
As City Manager Craig Martin and Mayor Craig Fentiman explained it, McCann said, “we’ve been working on a shoestring for so long, sometimes we didn’t even have shoes.”
Someone in that position might complain until meeting a man with no feet, McCann said. With that in mind, the library has always sucked it up and gotten the job done.
The library “has been the joy of my life,” McCann said. “It’s a little bittersweet.”
“We’re going to miss them,” said Librarian Sandi Leonard. “But I wish them all the best.”
“We’re going to miss both of them big time,” Fentiman said. “We used to hold council meetings here when we overflowed.”
Cook was usually behind the counter, he said, and he always enjoyed chatting with her after the meetings.
McCann was the only department head who brought a balanced budget proposal to the Budget Committee, Fentiman said, and then received an offer for more money.
In 1993, McCann was in the employee spotlight in the city’s newsletter, Martin said. She said the best thing about her job was the diversity of the people, books and duties, emphasizing books and people or people and books.
The library is more than a building and books, Martin said. It’s the people.
McCann and her staff, “for 25 years, have made it more than a building full of books,” he said.