Friend of the Year

My good friend, Dianne, works tirelessly on behalf of the library. She has been battling cancer for several years now and has been on and off of chemo more than a couple of times, but she doesn’t let her grueling treatment stop her. Even when she is confined at home, she manages to dream up and carefully plan fundraising ideas, as well as write thank you notes to people who’ve shown generosity to our library in one way or another. When she is well, there is no stopping her. We’ve had BBQ Sales, Bake Sales, a Rodeo Round-Up for the little boys in the community, a Mad Hatter Tea Party for the little girls, and the list goes on and on.

Dianne spent days cutting down her grown daughters' old prom dresses and collecting accessories so the girls could play dress up. The last day was spent preparing cute little finger foods and punch to serve out of little tea sets that were on each small table.


Now she is into making book bags and aprons to sell in the library for the tax exempt library foundation. I was delighted to be able to save a couple of the cute doll dressforms I had used in my store for display of her adorable aprons and book bags. They are selling like hotcakes!


Her most recent project is to be the Petting Zoo at the Grand Opening of our local Farmer’s Market on June 12th.














She is one of the most generous and creative people I’ve ever known. I tried to nominate her for the Distinguished Service Award at the annual Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet this past January, but she refused to let me. She said she didn’t deserve it. She is also very humble. We finally managed to put one over on her. The Friends of Tennessee Libraries chose Dianne as Friend of the Year at their annual meeting held this month. No one could possibly be more deserving. I've got a great photo of her taking stock of the many cakes she baked for our last bake sale, but she'd shoot me if I posted it! Our library and our community is very fortunate to have Dianne as their advocate, and I am most fortunate to be able to call her my friend.