How I Got Here!

Sometimes I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ as I recite her mantra, "There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home". Seattle feels like home whereas Kansas and Missouri never did. When I left Leavenwoth in May of 1980, I did not realize that I really was coming home. After my car broke down on I-90 at Exit 106, I learned that Ellensburg was named after my great-great grandmother Ellen Shoudy. As I sat waiting for parts, I had time to explore the town, visit the gravesites, and wander the local museum learning about a woman whose picture graced my Grandfather’s desk in St. Louis.

I also learned that while I was driving west, Mt. St. Helens had erupted leaving dust and ash all across the state, explaining my clogged distributor. Seattle has been home now for twenty-eight years and I do not plan on leaving. My husband, Lee, and I float gently on Lake Union in our "little blue houseboat" on a wonderful dock with a supportive community. It is located on the opposite shore of the houseboat made famous in the movie "Sleepless In Seattle".

I have always been a voracious reader and when I was five my mother used to scold me for reading with a flashlight under the covers. When I was ten, I wanted to be an entomologist and collected praying mantises and butterflies that I let fly around my bedroom. Adolescence changed my focus from bugs to boys and I got married in college. I pursued a traditional career track of nursing, education, then teaching. I spent "time" at Leavenworth State Pen for men and women as a GED instructor for inmates wanting to get their high school diploma. It was a turning point in my life as I realized how important reading was for people’s self-esteem. I will never forget the pride and confidence exuded by one inmate who received his GED at the same time his son was awarded his high school diploma. Although their difference in age spanned twenty-two years, their level of success and sense of accomplishment was the same.

I continued to teach reading and language arts but my students changed from adults to teens and I became a Title One Reading Specialist at an urban junior high in Kansas City. After moving to Seattle, I worked in the private sector as a technical sales representative. Then for seven years, I was a Network Analyst for Seattle Public Schools providing technical support to teachers. After that, I collaborated with a team of six former educators designing and demonstrating technology curriculum to teachers through a federally funded five-year grant called the Technology Innovation Challenge Grant .

When the funding ended, I went on sabbatical for the 2001-2002 school year and spent two months in the colonial city of Morelia, Mexico, studying Spanish. I returned wanting to work with teens again, so I applied to the K-12 Library Media Specialist Endorsement Program at the iSchool and with only three courses under my belt accepted a full-time librarian position at Meany Middle School on Capital Hill in the fall of 2002. I decided to take my classes as a graduate non-matriculated student so I could apply them towards the MLIS degree. After I got my Library Media Endorsement, I applied to the Distance MLIS program and in the fall of 2005 began a three-year journey that is ending this June. Although I have also had to work full time during these six years of schooling, I have had some outstanding library experiences and job situations that reinforced the coursework and complemented my educational background.