CHECK IT OUT: YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY NEWS

By: Bridget Buffa
Moore Memorial is truly dedicated to children by providing wonderful and exciting activities for families in our community.  They offer weekly programs from Toddlers to Preschoolers. Getting you child interested in the Love of Reading is one of the best tools you can provide for them before they begin school.
Toddlerific Storytime is offered every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m.
Open to children ages 1-3. Toddlerific includes stories, songs, bubbles, and play time.
Preschool Storytime is offered every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m.
Open to children ages 3-5. Preschool Storytime includes stories, songs, alphabet learning, and a different fun and education activity or craft.  
Both are free with no ticket or registration required. (Due to space limitations, day care groups are normally not allowed).
1000 Books Before Kindergarten
Do you have a child that hasn’t started kindergarten? Do you want to help them learn skills to get ready to read before they even start school?
1,000 Books Before Kindergarten is an early literacy initiative to build and support the pre-reading skills of children from birth until before they start kindergarten.
This fun and free program is as simple as it sounds: Read 1,000 books to your child before he or she begins kindergarten. Sign up your infant to preschool age child in the Children’s Department. They will give you a folder with a handbook containing all the information about the program you’ll need, along with your child’s first two log sheets to record the first 200 books you read together. Once you fill your logs, bring them to a Children’s Department staff member and you can collect the reward for your child for those log levels and get your next log sheets. Once you complete your 10th and final log, you will have read 1,000 books together! To celebrate this achievement, your child will get a diploma certificate and book prize!
In case if you’re wondering, it counts each time you read the same book, books read in library storytimes count, and books anyone from aunts to babysitters read to your child count, too!
When you join the program, you will get support from the library along the way. They can help you choose books, give you early literacy tips, and encourage your child.
Several years ago, my husband, John and I took a road trip to Lockhart, Texas for a weekend of camping and to experience the barbecue rite of passage. About 35 miles southeast of Austin and boasting a population of about 13,000, the town is even officially known as the Barbecue Capital of Texas, according to the Texas Legislature. It’s home to three famous barbecue joints (also in the Top 50 Barbeque Places in Texas Monthly). We ate at all three ~ one each day.  The barbeque was great, but even more exciting was discovering the Dr. Eugene Clark Library.  The Library is the oldest continuously operating library in Texas.
   This Unique and historically significant building was built with a $10,000 bequest from Dr. Eugene Clark. Dr. Clark was a native of New Orleans, and his father died on the battlefield during the Civil War when Dr. Clark was only three. Mr. Clark’s life-long friend E.H. Purcell was with him as he lay dying and Mr. Clark requested that Purcell take care of his wife and son. Three years later Mrs. Clark lay on deathbed. She entrusted the care of her young son to her dearest friend Miss H.M. Young. Miss Young raised the boy as if he were her own and Mr. Purcell watched over the progress of the young boy as he grew.
   The Young Clark was a great satisfaction to both Miss Young and Mr. Purcell. He graduated from Tulane Medical School with the highest honors and did his residency at Charity Hospital. He graduated in May of 1883 and came to Lockhart.
   He entered practice with Dr. Lancaster, but Lancaster soon abandoned his practice, leaving the 21-year-old Clark to handle the practice alone. He Practiced medicine for 13 years in Lockhart and during this time a mutual love between Dr. Clark and the town grew.
  While practicing in San Antonio, Dr. Clark became very ill. He went to New York for surgery. On his way to New York he came through Lockhart to see his old friends. In New York his condition was pronounced incurable and he left to return to the only home he had known in New Orleans. On his deathbed, with Mr. Purcell and Miss Young by his side, he dictated a will specifying that the citizens of Lockhart should have a library and lyceum. His will left $10,000 to the people of Lockhart, of which $6,000 was to be used for construction, $1,000 to buy books and the remainder was to be put in a trust to maintain the building and purchase new books.
   Finding this Library was truly an unexcepted surprise on our trip…Hey, what could be better than Barbeque, Beer and BOOKS!
“Nothing is pleasanter than exploring a library.” –Walter Savage Landon