Date: Fri 24-May-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDREA

Quick Words:

Kathy-Geckle-trustee-award

Full Text:

with cut: Kathy Geckle Receives Library Trustees Award

B Y A NDREA Z IMMERMANN

Another honor was bestowed this week in connection with the Cyrenius Booth

Library expansion project. Kathy Geckle, who is a member of the Library Board

of Trustees and chair of the Long Range Planning Committee, received Trustee

of the Year Award from the Association of Connecticut Library Boards (ACLB) on

May 14 at a dinner ceremony in Plantsville.

The awards committee was very much impressed in leadership in building

community support for library expansion project and fund raising - she had

done an outstanding job in that area, said Phillip G. James, President of

ACLB.

Library Director Janet Woycik nominated the trustee last December. In her

letter to the awards committee, she wrote, "From the beginning - three years

ago - Kathy has been involved [in the expansion project] up to her eyeballs.

She is chair of the long range planning committee, which means not only

whipping the other board members into shape, but being a constant cheerleader

to keep everyone enthusiastic even during those depressing times when things

were not going quite as smoothly as she had hoped... Kathy Geckle is head and

shoulders above every board member with whom I have worked."

The director said Mrs Geckle's was dedicated to the many tasks involved in

planning - from making an inventory of every piece of furniture at our library

to creating lists and calling more than 100 people to get out and vote in

support of the expansion project. "Kathy stood outside for a week in freezing

cold weather to get the needed signatures for the library," Mrs Woycik wrote.

"She contacted all of the local newspapers, radio stations, and cable TV to

run publicity for our campaign - being interviewed constantly."

"I am really surprised and really flattered," said Mrs Geckle. "I think it's

nice for the Newtown Library that the state library system recognized the

amount of work that went into getting the addition through both Janet's award

and my award," she said, referring to the Special Achievement Award given to

Mrs Woycik for her work on the project.

The Long Range Planning Committee "isn't a little sub-committee - it's the

whole board, trustees emeritus, and representatives from Friends of the

Library - about 20 people," said Mrs Geckle. "It's because they worked hard

that I look good." She praised Mrs Woycik for her "contagious" enthusiam, and

Board President Gordon Williams for being a "quiet" leader who gets people to

respond.

The trustee said involvement in library work is a family tradition. Her

sister-in-law, Judy Carroll Geckle, is a library director in South Carolina,

and Judy's mother, Alice Carroll, was one of the founding members of the Booth

Library Board of Trustees.

"My mother, Alice Landry, was an avid reader and always had a library book in

her hand. She never bought a book," said Mrs Geckle. Later in life, her mother

moved to Cape Cod, and became a patron of a small library that was only opened

Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons. When she was no longer mobile enough

to go out, the people from the library would bring her books even though there

was no program or money designated for that.

"When we moved here, this library reminded me of that - it's personal," said

Mrs Geckle. "This staff looks at each patron individually."