Unclaimed Property--May 6th

Ever wonder if somebody out there owes you something and you don't even know it? Well, there's a way to find out, and you can do it at the library.

Wisconsin State Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass will be here at the Chippewa Falls Public Library on May 6th, 2010 from 10:00am-11:30am. She's asked us to be a host site for her Unclaimed Property Outreach Tour. The State of Wisconsin has a nifty database that compiles the names and addresses of people to whom money is owed (from estates, settlements, etc.), who owes them and how much they are owed. You can claim your money right on site and help them clear this database, which is pretty sizable, from what I understand.

In Chippewa County alone, there are more than 4,000 accounts worth nearly $2 million.

The kind folks of the Wisconsin Treasury Department will be set up in the LARGE MEETING ROOM right off the entrance hall, and participation is absolutely free, even if you don't have anything in the database. Tell a friend! Maybe you'll BOTH get paid.

Floats the Banner, Lighted Well

Just today, I got the last of three checks donated to the Chippewa Falls Public Library by local veterans' groups helping us to offset the installation of a spotlight on the front of the building. The light shines up on our American flag, enabling us to leave it up 'round the clock.

I have always maintained that libraries, more than any other institution in an open society, symbolize freedom, so it is fitting and just that the flag fly in front of the building all the time.

The three groups that donated to the flag-lighting were AmVets Post 32, American Legion Post 77 and VFW Post 1038. The complete cost of the project was $636.00, and $500.00 of this will be paid for with donated money. Roshell Electric did the work in a very timely and professional manner, and I am personally very pleased with the results, as several people have told me they are, as well.

To see the flag up at night as I walked by the other night on the way home from downtown brought to mind part of a poem I once heard in Boy Scouts:

"Years have passed, but still in glory
With a pride we love to see,
Laureled with a nation's glory
Waves the emblem of the free;
From the rugged pines of Northland
To the deep'ning everglade,
In the sunny heart of Southland
Floats the banner Betsy made."

Scrabbling To Keep Up--2010

Well, the other night your intrepid library director was invited to participate in the Chippewa Valley Literacy Volunteers' Scrabble tournament.

The team was made up of me, Carol Peterson of Friends of the Chippewa Falls Public Library, Library Board members Connie Russel, Linda Nebelsiek and Robert Hoekstra as well as Mary Ann King of the Chippewa County Board. The table was sponsored by the Friends of the Library, and we were given $50.00 by an anonymous donor to buy more tiles as we needed them. A formidable team, I'd say.

Well, cutting right to the chase, we didn't win. Unless you don't look up what I'm writing to confirm this, in which case we dominated the room like Sonny Liston in a bad mood.

All in all, it was a good time for a good cause and Ms. Nebelsiek even went home with a south-of-the-border themed prize bucket full of tortillas and maragarita mix after she won a drawing. So, we felt consolated.

Our "word waitress," Libby, kept the ball rolling even at those times in which we became sidetracked, which wasn't hard as we were fed free pizza until we were full. Or, at least, I was.

And I couldn't help but feel that someone coming over to our table to thank us for letting the literacy volunteers use the library as a place to tutor--as if we'd ever refuse such an endeavor--was a real touch of class.

This is the kind of thing I like, and I'm glad we did it. The picture above, by the way, is an actual image from the tournament.