Wednesday, July 9, 2008

It is embarassing and humbling to note that it has been more than seven months since I contributed to this blog--but I have now been moved to begin this process once again, primarily because I want to get back on track with communication regularly. Emailing can be effective for pushing information, but I am looking to develop some dialog.

Thanks to all of my Joyner colleagues who participated in the Verona Lee Joyner Langford celebration. Mrs. Langford's extraordinary generosity has meant a lot to this Library and to the ECU Community and by creating an endowment she provided the gift that keeps on giving. I am including the remarks I made at the ceremony, and when Joe provides his pictures, I will share those:

Happy Birthday Verona Lee!
Thanks to all of you for coming today to help us celebrate the Life and Generosity of Verona Lee Joyner Langford. Thanks especially to her niece, Emily Davidson, who helped us organize this celebration. You will hear more from her in just a few moments.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Langford, but I surely wish I had so that I could thank her and her husband in person. Their endowment enables the Joyner Library to serve and enrich the lives of our students, faculty and community in so many ways.
At the time of the gift, July 2001, the News and Observer Newspaper said “Fred and Verona Joyner Langford shared a prudent life in Eastern NC, where he was a high school agriculture teacher and she taught home economics. And the couple had a knack for investing that now has turned into an $8 million windfall for ECU.”
Verona Lee’s family had deep roots in the soil of eastern North Carolina, and as a 1935 graduate of East Carolina Teacher’s College, she wanted to give something to her alma mater that would help the students and the community directly. Although the University originally wanted her to support a merit scholarship program, she decided that giving it to the Library would benefit more people. We are certainly glad she did. That $8 million has grown to more than $10.5 million and it will continue to grow & benefit the Library and the University over time.
Since the original gift, the endowment has been used to add books and manuscripts, especially to our NC and Special Collection. These acquisition have very often been treasures which we would be unable to buy without the endowment. Just recently we purchased an exceedingly rare 1585 Latin edition of DeBrye’s A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia – a seminal work in American and NC history.
Moreover, the Langford gift has also been used to enhance our students’ education by allowing us to create two wonderful, state of the art Library Instruction Classrooms. And soon the entire first floor of this building will be transformed into a Collaborative Learning Center filled with the most up to date computers and technology, media authoring labs, practice presentation rooms, and comfortable, flexible areas for consultation, study and group work.
Yes, thank you and Happy Birthday Verona Lee!

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