CONWAY — Myra Book wanted to be a librarian before she married the man with the perfect last name.
Book, who is retiring after 25 years as a St. Joseph School librarian, said parents sometimes remark that they thought it was a joke when they heard her name.
“I come back with ‘Yes, but people say I have the wrong first name — it should be Rita,’” she said. “Sometimes they get it; sometimes they don’t.”
Book was sitting in the elementary-school library in Conway, the shelves covered with sheets to protect the books from a scheduled floor waxing, a window raised to let in hot air to diffuse the smell of a new piece of purple carpet in the room. She was working on the computer, a part of her job that evolved through the years.
In fact, it’s part of the reason she’s ready to retire.
“I’m getting older, and I am retirement age. The technology is still new, and more is coming on, and I just don’t feel qualified. The kids know a lot more about it than I do,” she said. Book said several students patiently help her when she gets stumped. “I don’t mind asking and have them bail me out.”
When she started her career, she taught students to use the card catalogue, a piece of furniture with drawers to hold index cards with the author, title and subject of books; then the system became computerized.
The Greenbrier resident is the librarian for kindergarten through the sixth grade, which started in one building, but as enrollment grew, the grades were divided into two buildings. The elementary school once served as Ellen Smith Elementary School for the Conway School District, and it’s where she started her student teaching in 1971.
She grew up as Myra Lyon in the tiny Yell County town of Ranger, about 5 miles north of Danville. It had a grocery store at one time; now it consists of a community church on Arkansas 27, she said.
She graduated from Plainview-Rover High School, which has since consolidated with Ola and Fourche Valley to become the Two Rivers School District.
Book always loved to read, and she has fond memories of going to the library when she was
growing up.
“Gladys Sachse was the librarian at the public library in the old Danville Courthouse upstairs,” she said. “It’s not the existing courthouse; back then, it was a two-story building, and part of the upstairs had the county library. I already liked to read. Being an only child, it was one of the activities I did, and I enjoyed going upstairs, looking at the books and participating in summer reading.”
Her favorite books — “this dates me,” she said — were The Bobbsey Twins and The Black Stallion series. For her science-fiction fix, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein were her favorite writers.
As an adult, she doesn’t have a favorite book or author.
“I don’t have anything in particular; I just love to read,” she said. When Louis L’Amour was prolific, she would read those. “I’ll still pick up a L’Amour book,” she said.
Book’s mother, a couple of aunts and a great uncle were all teachers, “and I just followed in my mother’s footsteps,” Book said.
She went to State College of Arkansas in Conway, now the University of Central Arkansas. That’s where she met her husband of 44 years, Albert. He worked in the cafeteria, and they had a class together, too.
“He invited me to a football game,” she said. “Plainview-Rover didn’t have football; we had basketball, so I actually went to my first football game.”
She majored in elementary education and minored in library science. She received her master’s degree in elementary education immediately after graduating — a path she doesn’t recommend. Because she had her master’s degree and was higher on the pay scale, but had no experience, it was hard to find a job, she said.
Book worked at the Faulkner County Library as an assistant from 1973 to 1977; then she stayed home to raise her two sons, Gerald and Jeff, who are 15 months apart.
She did substitute teaching in the Greenbrier School District until 1977. She also filled in for a first-grade teacher on medical leave in the Guy-Perkins School District.
The Mount Vernon and Enola school districts consolidated, and in January 1991, Book was hired as the Enola K-12 librarian, where she worked until May.
The Enola job got her foot in the door, she said, and she took refresher courses at UCA in 1991, and while she was taking summer classes, she learned that St. Joseph needed a librarian for kindergarten through the sixth grade. She was hired and started the job in August 1991.
“Love the family atmosphere,” she said.
Book said she is one of the few on staff who isn’t Catholic. She’s Missionary Baptist.
“When I interviewed, it was one of the stipulations, or requirements, that I not try to persuade or influence students in any way with my choice of religion and to participate in any way I could — Mass and things like that.”
When she started in 1991, the book budget was “very frugal” for the private school. Students pay a $12 book fee, “which doesn’t go very far,” she said, and two book fairs are held. The libraries are primarily supported by the annual spring fundraiser called HOOKS — Help Out Our Kids’ School. “There’s always been the parental support,” she said. “Coach [Joe] Mallett, our retiring principal, always strongly supported the library.”
The library has award-winning books, and students get to help choose winners in some categories.
“For this level, (K-3), they are still excited and everything about the printed page and books,” she said.
Book said she keeps a section of new books that she buys, and it’s not unusual for a student to come by and say, “Mrs. Book, do you have anything new?”
Book said it’s harder to get students in grades four through six to make time to read because they have more extracurricular activities.
“It’s very good for parents to read to their children, and I do think it helps them be better students,” she said.
She hasn’t purchased e-books for the library, although there are some in the high school
library.
“I didn’t grow up with them, and I just haven’t added them,” she said. Book said she expects that to be something the new librarian — third-grade teacher Christy Pasierb — might want to do.
Book was picked by the elementary-school faculty to receive the annual Golden Apple Award as Teacher of the Year, which is given to one person on each campus at St. Joseph School. Also at St. Joseph, winners were high-school consumer-science teacher Monica Lieblong and middle-school math, science and social studies teacher Nicole Gooch.
Book said the honor means “a lot, because to me, it’s something that’s traditionally [awarded to a] classroom teacher, rather than a specialty,” which are art, music, PE and library,
she said.
Book said she is looking forward to retirement, but she’s going to miss the students and faculty. She doesn’t have a lot of plans, but she said she has household chores to catch up on that have gone by the wayside. And, she will have more time to read.
“That is my escape, relaxing outlet — would you say vice? Pleasure,” she said, smiling.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.