Thursday, March 28, 2024

Library director resigns

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The Hood County Library is losing its second director in less than four years. Karen Rasco is retiring, effective Friday. Assistant Director and Youth Librarian Rhiannon Graham will serve as interim director until a new director is hired, Rasco said. The job is posted on the personnel page of the county’s website, www.co.hood.tx.us.Rasco has served as library director since March 1, 2016. “I’m just tired,” she told the HCN this week. “A lot of it is, I’m physically tired.” She has also grown weary for other reasons as well. “The politics, that doesn’t help any,” she said. The library and the Library Advisory Board have been at the heart of controversy dating back to the summer of 2015 when there were emotionally-charged arguments over tolerance-teaching children’s books. The flap resurfaced after the election of Dave Eagle as county commissioner for Precinct 4. Eagle was vocal in speaking out against the books. Rasco was hired by the previous Commissioners Court to replace Courtney Kincaid, who refused to remove the books and was supported in that decision by the LAB. Kincaid resigned in November 2015 after accepting a job at another library. Though gone from Hood County, protesters followed her to her new place of employment. Rasco said that Graham has expressed no interest in becoming the county’s next library director.

WORKING ELSEWHERE

Though she described her departure from the Hood County Library as “retiring” from that job, Rasco isn’t actually retiring.

She said she plans to substitute teach in the Stephen-ville school district while waiting to hear whether she will be offered a job at that city’s library or at the library on the Tarleton State University campus.

Rasco lives in Stephenville with her sister and said that the commute has grown difficult.

“It happened rather quickly,” she said of her decision. “It was just one day I thought, oh my gosh, I can’t do this anymore.”

Rasco said that she has taken little time off and that her “main goal” was to see the county through the library expansion project.

“And I did that, so I can leave now,” she said.

The library reopened on May 1 with an additional 10,000 square feet.

Although Rasco and her staff had professional help moving books and other materials back into the facility, she and other county officials have noted that it was nevertheless a physically daunting task.

Rasco and her staff received praise from the Commissioners Court for their handling of all that the expansion project entailed.

Friends of the Library member Elaine Allan said she is “saddened” by the loss of Rasco, whom she praised for obtaining a grant that started the library’s adult literacy program. Allan is one of the program’s tutors.

“She is just so completely dedicated,” she stated of the departing library director.

Allan expressed concern about how the Commissioners Court will choose her replacement.

Referring to politics being infused into the library, she stated that “shenanigans” could cause the library to lose its accreditation. If that happens, she said, “everyone in the county is going to be hurt, and the future of the library will be at stake.”

Of Rasco, Allan said: “I’m glad we had her for as long as we did.”

kcruz@hcnews.com | 817-573-7066, ext. 258.