September 16, 2023
The Sun and News, Greg Chandler Staff Writer
A nine-member committee will soon get to work on the feasibility of bringing a standalone public library to Middleville.
The Village Council Tuesday approved appointments to the ad hoc committee, which is to report back to the council in two years to determine options for both the location and funding of the new library, which would replace the current library inside Thornapple Kellogg High School.
Six community members, two Village Council members and a Thornapple Kellogg school board member will serve on the committee. Five of the six community appointees are part of a group that has been meeting for more than a year to discuss ideas for a new library.
The community appointees are Chris Boysen, Jamie Bowman, Sarah Buer, Kattie Bynski, Michelle Frey and Josh Mosey. Village President Mike Cramer and Council Trustee Makenzi Peters will be the council representatives and Brenda Hess will be the TK school board representative.
All of the appointees attended Tuesday’s council meeting and got a chance to speak about why they wanted to be part of the committee. Boysen is a former librarian at the Thornapple Kellogg School & Community Library and is a former TK teacher and community education director. She has been calling for the establishment of a separate public library in Middleville for more than 20 years.
“I have visited numerous libraries around the state, have talked to several Barry County librarians as well as other Michigan librarians, and believe that a new public library would provide an essential service for our community, and I would love to see it in our community, in the downtown area,” Boysen said. “I think it would be a jewel down here.”
Bowman taught for 34 years in five school districts in Michigan and Nevada and now works part-time at Carveth Village.
“In my experience, living in Nevada, we had beautiful libraries. We lived in Henderson, outside of Las Vegas,” Bowman said. “My niece lives in Daytona Beach, I have been to the library in Daytona Beach. My grandchildren now live in Holland, they have beautiful libraries. We just really need a library.”
Holding her 3-year-old son Teddy as she spoke, Beur expressed the view that a library would be a good place for mothers such as herself to meet. “We end up driving into Caledonia to visit their library, and it’d be nice to have one close to home,” she said.
Bynski said that her children are excited about the possibility of a library Middleville.
“What I love about our community is that we have a great librarian (Barb Hurless), but we don’t have a great space,” Bynski said. “When I talk to my kids about making a new library independent from the high school, they get really excited, because they go to the Caledonia library a lot. We go to the Wayland library a lot. They participate in their programs, and they want to be able to have a great program and a great library here, in Middleville.”
Frey grew up in Middleville but moved to New Orleans after high school to pursue a career in the culinary arts. She relocated back to Middleville after the pandemic and now is a mother to an 8-month-old child.
“It would be a huge asset to have my baby son to be able to go somewhere that we can walk to and pick out books,” Frey said.
Mosey is a 2000 Thornapple Kellogg High graduate and a digital specialist for Kent District Library. A father of two kids in the school district, he relocated back to Middleville five years ago.
“I have written books, I have worked in publishing, I have worked in an independent bookstore for 15 years, I’ve done marketing,” Mosey said.
“I am super excited about this committee. You can all hear why,” he added.
Hess, who was elected to the TK school board last November, taught for 30 years before she retired. She also started a summer bookmobile program in the small community of Buchanan, near the Indiana border, where she served as the city’s mayor. Hess has also worked at the Leighton Township Library in northeast Allegan County.
“It’s my passion. I just like to see kids with books,” she said. “I was a literacy coach for six of the 30 years I taught, and one thing that I’d like to point out is that when little children are learning to read, one book isn’t going to do it. You can’t just check out one book for a child and then come back two weeks later. They need a lot of books and they need to be able to come to a building and turn over their books so that they have enough material to keep them exposed to new words, new ideas, new pictures, and I think a little library here in the village would just be awesome.”
Peters had attended a few meetings of the community library group before the council established the new committee.
“Investing in our kids, in this community, is never a wrong choice,” Peters said. “I feel that we can work together. We have enough talent and great minds to work together.”
Cramer made the motion to approve the appointees.
“I like to see more (activities for) kids. I think they need to be inside and learning from books as much as they need to be outside. That’s the best way to prepare them for any kind of future… I am excited to get a library in town,” he said.
A date has not yet been set for the committee’s first meeting.
Middleville Community Library 