Ronda McGreevy Takes Post as Les Cheneaux Library Manager
By Amy Polk

New Les Cheneaux Community Library Branch Manager Ronda McGreevy (right) is assisted in her duties at the library by (from left) student worker Leigh Ann Hamel and volunteer Nicole Yeager. Both girls are Cedarville High School students.

Ronda McGreevy is the new Les Cheneaux Community Library branch manager, bringing with her an education and experience in library science and technology and a personal love of literature and art.

"I look forward to helping to build a collection that is reflective of community interests and tastes, and one that helps support the school and its benchmarks for learning by coordinating our collection with the school," she said. "This is such an incredible facility, with a wonderful collection to begin with, so we're really starting at a great point."

Mrs. McGreevy was hired three weeks ago to replace Lisa Pelkey, who is moving with her husband, Chuck, to Minnesota, where he has accepted a pastorate. Mr. Pelkey has been a pastor at First Union Church in Cedarville.

Mrs. McGreevy began her new part-time job at the library two weeks ago and will continue to operate her Great Turtle Cake Company in Cedarville. She also teaches piano at the Sault Theatre Arts Resource Studio in Sault Ste. Marie.

She has a master's degree in library media, which also qualifies her to teach kindergarten through 12th grades, and she is certified to teach music. She served as librarian at Mackinac Island Public Library, Mackinac Island Public School, and was a library media specialist at Traverse City Central High School.

She plans to coordinate book clubs for teenagers to stimulate them to read books and recommend them to their peers. Themes like the journey, the underdog, or heroes and villains typically guide a suggested reading list for teenagers, she said, and give participants something with a common interest to talk about.

"I was thrilled with the way it got kids reading," Mrs. McGreevy said of a similar program she was involved with in Traverse City.

She would also like to help develop book clubs for people of all ages, she said.

"The power of books is in sharing what you have read with others," Mrs. McGreevy said. "We learn things about ourselves and the world around us, and it's intensified when we talk about it with others."

Her position is administered through Bayliss Public Library of Sault Ste. Marie, which operates the Les Cheneaux library as a branch. The Friends of the Les Cheneaux Community Library schedule the programs, organize art displays, and maintain the facility.

Mrs. McGreevy said her studies of library media encompass all library media and how to integrate Michigan's educational benchmarks and standards.

"Now, rather than just books, it includes all media, like electronic and Internet," she said.

She is interested in helping others learn about technology and is willing to teach technology classes. She also is researching interest in an arts club that would include excursions to music and theater shows. She was involved in a similar club on Mackinac Island that took participants to shows in places like Kalamazoo and Chicago.

"Anytime people have the opportunity to share an experience with the arts as a group, it touches lives and enriches them," Mrs. McGreevy said. "I believe a library can be the intellectual center of a community, and I love the integration of arts here in this facility."

She and her husband, Ed, and their son, Ian, live in Cedarville, around the corner from the library on Hodeck Street. Mr. McGreevy works for Arnold Transit Company on Mackinac Island and Ian, 12, is in the eighth grade at Cedarville Middle School.

The library is open Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is closed Sunday and Monday. The telephone number is (906) 484-3547.