READING CHALLENGES
From Feb. 1 to Feb. 28, Bluffton Public Library is participating in “For the Love of Reading,” and “Black History Month” Reading Challenges sponsored by Beanstack. Earn badges while you fall in love with reading this month or as you learn more about Black history, celebrate authors and illustrators and explore events in our community honoring Black experiences. Keep Reading Bluffton!
STORYTIME
Family, Pre-K, & Baby Storytime (R): Begins on February 6 to April 26. Register on our webpage, phone call, by QR code https://tinyurl.com/Storytime2023, or stop by the library front desk to register. Storytime is a reading and song-filled half hour to encourage a relationship with reading. Register for Monday evenings @ 6:00 p.m. OR Wednesday mornings at 10:00 & 10:30 a.m.
BOOK GROUPS
Noon Book Group (R) meets in person Wed. Feb 1 to discuss The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave. On Wed., March 1 the group will discuss Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery. Stop by the library's front desk to pick up the book for the next discussion and to sign up for email updates and reminders.
This past weekend PPK USA hosted their national punt, pass and kick contest in Tampa, Florida, including competitors advancing from the Made in Ada Wilson Football festival regional event.
Jamarcus St Laurent is now the National Champion 1st place overall ages 8-9 and Kamden Sampson placed 2nd overall ages 6-7. See additional phots on the Ada Area Chamber of Commerce Facebook page.
After a spell of ill health, I find myself back at the books and the keyboard during a winter storm, ready to talk about a book I wanted to hate, but couldn't.
Barbara Kingsolver is a great writer who presents her stories as plain-faced as a tale can be. This leads to some unpleasant topics sometimes when a story absolutely must be told. Such is “Demon Copperhead” ($34.50 ISBN:987-0-06-326746-6), an Oprah's Book Club 2022 selection.
The book is all about a boy (Daemon) with red hair (Copperhead) growing up up in the Apalachicola South, with all its poverty–which means plenty of teen mothers and drugs, among other things like high school football, drinking excessively and having not much future to look forward to. On the other hand, family is tight and most important in life.
Can you guess the number of horses in Richland Township and Bluffton 128 years ago? Try 683. That’s nearly 1 horse for every 5 persons here.
That interesting statistic is one of several uncovered in an assessment of Richland Township and the Village of Bluffton in 1895.
Most of the details relate to agriculture, simply because our American society was agriculturally based at this time.
The Bluffton News reported the assessor’s 1985 finding. We’ve posted these directly from the News story, that follows:
Assessor J.W. Steiner made his report to the county auditor last Friday, after having put in 31 days in gathering the usual statistics and data for the township and corporation.
Dr. Walt Paquin, professor of social work at Bluffton University, will present the Colloquium, “Developing 'New' Tools for Student Learning,” at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3 in Centennial Hall’s Stutzman Lecture Hall.
This presentation focuses on the projects that Paquin has explored over his 2021-22 sabbatical. Paquin has significantly revised the ‘Learning in Community’ course to increase student engagement in the Lima community. He also discovered ways to enhance student engagement and “learning activities” throughout the Social Work curriculum at Bluffton University.
