Three unscheduled candidates for the Lowndes County Library Board set examples for informative applications to an appointed board.

At the 10 June 2013 Work Session the Chairman did clearly say library board appointments were not on the agenda but would be at their next meeting. He didn’t define “next meeting”, but he meant two weeks later, when it is indeed on the agenda for this morning and tomorrow evening. Back two weeks ago, South Georgia Regional Library Director Kelly Lenz said two nominees were present for two vacant positions. Then she named three people: Jack Hartley, Linda Most, and Matt Lawrence.

Jack Hartley’s LinkedIn profile says he is “Franchsie Owner of Home Instead Senior Care, Valdosta, Georgia”. He said:

I’ve been a business owner here in Lowndes County for seventeen years, owner of U.S. Photo, and also of a company called Home Instead Senior Care. I’d be happy to serve on the board, I have quite a bit of extensive sales, marketing, and management experience, I think I’d bring that to the board, and I’d be a real good player.

Commissioners had no questions for Hartley.

Linda Most said:

I’m an assistant professor of library and information studies at VSU. I moved to Valdosta to take the position and it will be here five years. I’m an experienced public librarian. Before I went back to get my graduate degree and earn my PhD, I worked as a public librarian in Beech County, Florida and Baltimore, Maryland, and my dissertation research was on the role of rural public libraries as important community places. I think SGRL is a very important institution to this county and I would like very much to be involved in seeing it prosper.

Commissioners had no questions for Most.

Matt Lawrence said:

I’m a lawyer here in town. And I will not try to give advice to the library board. Two reasons that I would like to serve.

First of all is just a very simple one. My family’s been here since there’s been a town here, and I think it is incumbent upon people who are nurtured by a community to give back to the community. I feel like I need to serve in some capacity and I would be glad to do that.

But the second reason… I think that in an era where each of you have computers and all in front of you these technological gadgets which they’re all nice; they help us in a lot of ways it is extraordinarily important to be able to sit down and read through and comprehend it and understand it and to have the way that we think shaped by what we use as tools to learn. And our culture and our western civilization since the printing press was invented has been developed and created by the written word. And I think that it is very important that we should encourage children not only drudge through what they have to drudge through in school, but to inculcate in them a desire and a love of reading for its own sake, and pursuing knowledge for its own sake.

Commissioners had no questions for Lawrence.

Here’s the video:

Library Board candidates set an example
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 10 June 2013.

At the 11 June 2013 Regular Session, Ms. Lenz was present, but the library board appointments were indeed still not on that agenda. Come to the Regular Session Tuesday 25 June 2013 and see who they appoint.

-jsq

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