Kurtis Kelly
Kurtis Kelly
So wrote English poet Humbert Wolfe. Fitting words at summertime's finale. Literally they speak of the physical manifestations of the changing season; figuratively of the excitement of a time of transition.

While many exciting events are in store for this fall, it would be remiss to bid summer adieu without reflection. For the Estes Valley Library, it was a summer to remember.

With summer's end approaches the conclusion of the popular armchair travel-adventure series, "Our Wonderful World" . These presentations have showcased stories and photography from extraordinary treks and travels--sometimes exotic, sometimes extreme, both near and far. 2012 marked the sixth season--and the second year in the spacious setting at National Park Village.

The event outgrew the library space years ago, and this year set a new record -- both in attendance and quantity of programs. In thirteen weeks, the series recorded a grand total of 1634 attendees. To place that in perspective, the library's Hondius Room would have been too small by 984 total seats --or about 75 seats each week. Which is why we -- and all our attendees -- are especially grateful to Scott and Katie Webermeier at National Park Village--and to Barleen's Rocky Mountain Opry -- for their generous support in providing a venue for these presentations -- which have enriched the Estes Valley through their unique opportunity for cultural and geographic learning and inspiration.

We're also grateful to all the presenters -- including Stan Havlick.


Advertisement

Not only did Stan present a program on winter travel in Yellowstone, he continues to work with me in recruiting presenters and scheduling programs, and the series wouldn't have had the scope or impact without Stan's many local and regional contacts.

"Our Wonderful World" gave us a great reason to look forward to Monday nights, and it is not alone as a library highlight worth celebrating.

The Summer Reading Program was another vibrant success --inspiring 334 young readers with reading incentives, while also providing 108 special programs that reached a total audience of 2337 attendees.

Then there is that great summer tradition of the Friends of the Library Used Book Sale. I enjoyed strolling through the Friday evening pre-sale last month, watching readers gaze upon the tables in search of gems that would lead to hours of reading enjoyment and gifts for others. With some 38,000 items for sale, it was another success, falling just a bit shy of last year's record take but remaining an essential fundraiser for the Library. We thank the dedicated crew of volunteers who bring it together.

As the nights grow cooler -- and we soon watch the air "wild with leaves" , we'll look forward to a fall that includes the Library Foundation dinner on Sept. 23 -- and an October filled with special events around One Book One Valley's novel "Doc". Yet we'll remember a grand summer --happily awaiting next year's equally-promising season of the sun.
http://www.eptrail.com/estes-park-opinion/ci_21483335/tribute-season-son
www.eptrail.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2014-52
55644
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:WQPEQP2BCX5DMBVPJUBSX7SQE7NV7I4T
<urn:uuid:9a86b318-a23c-4eae-8ba3-4f33f97aeb0d>
2014-12-18T12:44:30Z
23.0.160.82
sha1:5WYWA7U72YNP2R57X5OQLQN3GD4ZG4GJ
<urn:uuid:a1ff0bd5-f6ed-4982-992e-062c4bdc762e>
http://www.eptrail.com/estes-park-opinion/ci_21483335/tribute-season-son
response
<urn:uuid:d3c861a9-6947-41f6-85d5-5da380e8246b>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-231-17-201.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2014-52
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for December 2014
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf