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Remembering
Evelyn Thurman
by
Brian Coutts
Known
to countless thousands of Kentucky school children as Mizz
Thurman, Evelyn began turning kids on to reading from her
very first teaching assignment in Simpson County schools in
1951. A native of Burkesville, Kentucky, she was born in 1921.
In 1946 she obtained a Diploma in Bookkeeping from the Bowling
Green Business University. Five years later she received an
A.B. from Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. While teaching
in Simpson County and Franklin elementary schools, she enrolled
at George Peabody College in Nashville, from where she received
an M.A. in Library Science in 1962. In between, she pursued
her interest in all things international by teaching for the
Defense Department in schools in Japan, from 1954-1956; Germany,
1957-1959; and Bermuda, 1965-1966.
Her
career as a librarian began with a stint at Fort Knox High
School from 1962 to 1965.
In 1966 she joined the library faculty at Western Kentucky
University serving in a variety of positions as General Reference
Librarian and Juvenile Bibliographer. In 1984 she became the
first librarian to win the University Public Service Award.
In 1988 she was promoted to Professor in recognition of outstanding
teaching, public service and research. In 1989 she received
the Sara Elizabeth Tyler Merit Award for outstanding service
to the profession of librarianship. In a letter of October
25, 1989, Sara Tyler commenting on her award wrote: “I
express my appreciation to you for your creative writing,
your sharing of time and experiences with many groups, and
your aggressive persistence in getting things done.”
A former student of hers wrote that same year “in his
acceptance speech for Nobel Prize–John Steinbeck said
that in your lifetime you’ll probably have only two
or three teachers that will shape your history. You have been
one of mine!”
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| Ms. Thurman at the 2002 Southern Kentucky Book Fest |
For most of her career at WKU, Evelyn taught courses in Children’s
and Young Adult
Literature and Storytelling for the Library Media Education
program in the College of Education. By all accounts, she was
an extraordinary teacher. A student from her 1981 LME 411 class
wrote: “this course has been the highlight of my time
spent at Western.” Said another: “I will be half
finished my Master’s this summer and this has been the
first course I feel to really benefit me.” Another student
in a LME 288 class commented: “this is the most enjoyable
class I’ve ever had.”
Evelyn’
s success as a teacher was enhanced by her love of research.
She developed a passion for the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
After several research grants she visited all of the many
sites where the Ingalls or Wilder family had lived and wrote
about it in her Ingalls-Wilder Homesites, which went
through six editions and was a bestseller at Wilder museums
in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She published five other books
including: Little Houses on the Prairie with Search and
Find the Word Puzzles, The Canary Who Wants to Talk,
Christmas in Kentucky With Little Bernel, A Pioneer
Civil War Story for Molly and Ben, and Rebecca Caudill:
Kentucky Author. She wrote hundreds of reviews of children’s
books for the Bowling Green Daily News and other
regional papers and was a frequent writer for the Franklin
Favorite.
Over the years, Evelyn perfected her storytelling skills.
She would begin by reading a book to a group of children,
changing her voice for each character, and mimicking the sounds
of animals, and then get the group so involved in the story
that they would be on the edge of their seats waiting for
the next event or the ending, but she would stop just before
the climax of story refusing to go on—telling them that
if they really wanted to know the “rest of the story,”
they’d have to read it themselves. The students would
make a mad dash to the library shelf so they could get the
book before anyone else. She also used props to great effect.
Her rendition of “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed
A Fly” was particularly memorable. For most of the 1980's,
she gave upward of 20 presentations a year to more than 4,000
students. Her calendar in 1989 included presentations in Bowling
Green; Monticello; Breckenridge County; Owensboro;
Central City; Pepin, Wisconsin; Spring Valley, Minnesota;
Butte, Montana; Tillmook, Oregon; Portland, Oregon; Monmouth,
Oregon; Reno Nevada; Scottsville, Kentucky; Louisville; Atlanta
and back to Hartford. She covered these distances by bus or
in her aging VW car.
When
not traveling, she could be found on one of her epic walks
across the city, checking out her rental properties, picking
up interesting objects for future stories, or even dispensing
coupons to needy students. Careful with her money—she
spent almost none of it on herself. Instead, she endowed a
series of scholarships at Western to support graduate students
in elementary education; to tutor athletes in the men’s
and women’s basketball programs; and to support students
in Library Media Education. She established a library reference
fund, an endowment for the radio station, a Glasgow Library
Fund, and the Evelyn Thurman Children’s Author Fund
to bring a distinguished children’s author to Western
each year.
Following
her retirement from the library in 1990, she returned to teaching
in the College of Education until finally retiring again in
1995. In 1996, she toured Australia and New Zealand, where
she visited countless libraries and wrote about her travels
in a series of articles in the Franklin Favorite
in 1997. While her mind remained sharp almost till the end—a
series of falls and a stroke made life difficult. She died,
January 12, 2005 in Woodburn. Kentucky.
I
think a Maryland schoolboy summed up our feelings about Evelyn
in this 1990 letter
to her:
Dear Ms. Thurman:
Thank you for tell [sic] us about Laura Ingall Wilder. I
think I’ll write something. I wonder what I need to
write a children’s book. I told my Grandma about what
we learned & she said that she might take my cousins
& sisters & myself to see a homesite of Mrs. Wilder.
Can you write back and give me some advice on how to write
a book.[sic] You have really inspired me. Thank you!!!
Sincerely,
James
Juba
P.S.
Thank you.
WKU
Libraries Celebrated Lucy's Retirement
by
Dan Forrest
Lucy
Daniels, longtime supervisor of the Circulation Desk in the
Cravens Library, retired in January after more than 31 years
of service to Western. A retirement party was held in her
honor January 28th. The attendance by so many of her coworkers,
family members, and even some former student workers is a
testimony to how much she was loved and respected, and to
how much she will be missed by all of us. Staffers who have
spoken to her since her retirement say she is enjoying spending
more time with her family, church, and being involved with
her many other activities.
WKU
Libraries Celebrated Laura Harper Lee's Retirement
by Jonathan Jeffrey
Laura Harper Lee, Kentucky
Library and Museum's Education Curator, retired in March 2005
after twenty-eight years of service. She will be missed for
her teaching and grant-writing experience. Laura worked tirelessly
to interpret the Kentucky Museum's exhibits for children and
adult audiences. Her programming triumphs ranged from open
hearth cooking demonstrations, to art classes, to musical
and theatrical events. Each year she also supervised students
from WKU's Folk Studies program who interpreted new facets
of Kentucky's history for museum visitors. Besides being committed
to activities at Christ Episcopal Church, Laura was heavily
involved with the Bowling Green Historic Preservation Board,
the Landmark Association, the Bowling Green Beautification
Commission, and the Friends of Riverview.
Gary
Whittle has
been promoted to Circulation Desk Supervisor for the Helm-Cravens
Library.. He replaces Lucy Daniels who retired after 32 years
of service.
Paula
Bowles replaces
Gary Whittle as Senior Circulation Assistant with responbility
for obligations (fines and overdues). Paula formerly held
two part-time positions in Reference/Periodicals.
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