2014 - Murder Mystery a Success!

The Friends of the Pioneer Memorial Library held their 10th Annual Murder Mystery! A great cast and great audience ensured a great night of fun!

"Art Friendsy - Chair-ish Your Library" Fundraiser - 2014

The Friends of Pioneer Memorial Library asked local artists, be they adult, teens or children to contribute the the "Chair-ish Your Library project for the second year.  The Friends ended up with 4 wonderful chairs creatively designed and painted by 4 middler school groups of art students, 1 chair by two high school teachers, a table and chair by an interior decorator and her young adult daughter, an artist and her husband who designed the lady bug rolling chair, and other artists who presented their wares!  We made over $1,000.00 for this project!

Poetry Workshop conducted by Kansas Poet Laureate, Wyatt Townley

Wyatt Townley, the Kansas Poet Laureate stayed at the library after Booked For Lunch and taught 14 participants how to write an American Cinquain poem. This workshop was sponsored by the Patricia A. Embree Trust Fund at the Thomas County Community Foundation.

Wyatt had us begin by thinking about home.  What was in each room of our house. Then we choose a room and thought about it for about 5 minutes. We then wrote some notes down on our thoughts.


A Cinaquain poem is a poem that has 5 stanzas with different syllables on each line. Once we had grasped that, we tried our hand at writing something.  Most of us shared our creations with the group.  We had some real talent.  We need to start a poetry group so that such gifted communicators can begin to share their thoughts and creativity with others!

Booked For Lunch: March 2014 - Kansas Poet Laureate, Wyatt Townley spoke

The library had the honor of having the Kansas Poet Laureate speak to us about the Notion of Home. This was sponsored by the Kansas Humanities Council.  They helped bring Wyatt Townley to speak to us.

Lunch was sponsored by the American Association of University Women of Colby (AAUW). Fifty six (56) of us ate a wonderful soup or chili with crackers, dill or bread & butter pickles, sugar cookies with the AAUW logo on it, and more.

Meanwhile Wyatt talked to us about poetry and the value it brings to our souls.  She asked us why we often struggle with poetry.  Some in the audience thought we were too busy to enjoy or write poetry. She also commented that many think that a piece of poetry has to have a meaning. She negated that and said it needs to speak to us, allow it to do its work in us.  Wyatt read some of her poetry and poetry of other authors. She just has the way to speak, gesture and express the poetry so that it comes alive. She inspired the whole group.  Many wanted to start a poetry writing group.  The Library Director, Melany Wilks then said that that would be a great thing to happen at the library, and that there was a Poetry Workshop right after the Booked For Lunch event. She invited everyone to participate in the workshop.