Annual Young Author's Contest underway

The Crook County Library Foundation is sponsoring the Mary Hadley Memorial Young Author’s Contest again this spring. All Crook County youth are invited to participate by contributing ONE of the following: cowboy poetry, fiction story about a Crook County landmark or nonfiction story about your family.

Entries may be completed as part of a class project if desired by any teacher, or may be completed individually at home. Homeschoolers are also welcome to submit entries.

Prizes will be awarded in the following divisions: Preschool – Kindergarten (story by picture), 1st-3rd grade, 4th-6th grade and 7th-12th grade. Entries in the 7th-12th grade division should be typewritten or computer-generated.

We need the following information on the BACK of each entry: student’s name, address, phone #, age, and grade. There will also be an award of $100 to the teacher with the most participants in his/her class!

Entries need to be turned in to your local library in Sundance, Moorcroft or Hulett by Monday, April 15. Local winners in each division will be announced on April 19; they will also be entered automatically into a county-wide contest. The county award winners will be announced on April 26.

Born and raised in San Diego, California, Mary Hadley grew up on the beach but always wanted to be a cowboy. It was a dream, she says, of a “wild, lonely country.”

Eventually, that dream came true when she married Bob Hadley in 1949. They spent their life together either managing or owning isolated cattle and horse ranches in Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming.

While helping to run their ranches, Mary also raised seven children, but later in life still found enough time to capture some of her experiences in stories and articles that have appeared in such publications as Arthritis Today, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Woven in the Wind: Women Write About Friendship in the Sagebrush West. She especially liked to write —and read — children’s books.

“Children suspend disbelief,” she said, “and follow a yellow brick road wherever it takes them.”

The Crook County Library Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation formed by the library board in 1984 to “encourage and administer donations, memorials and endowments for library buildings, programs and specific needs of the public libraries in Crook County.” Currently, the members of the Foundation board are Will Yemington, Linda Rogers, Sue Fuhrmann, Mary Heinert, Kay McKim and Merle Clark.

The Foundation was originally formed to accept and administer gifts and donations to the Library, but over the years its role has expanded significantly. It moved into a more active fund-raising role, due to the Wyoming State Legislature’s endowment challenge, which provided a 3-to-1 match for funds raised at the local level.

Through the Foundation, we have purchased periodicals, books, furniture, computers and helped fund the summer reading program in each library – things above and beyond what the county library budget could handle. Some grants can only be awarded to 501(c)(3) entities and we’ve been able to qualify for funding for computers, space needs assessment, summer reading programs. And through the library endowment we are able to provide for the library system into the future, ensuring that our library services are the very best that we can provide to ALL our patrons.

If you have any questions about the Foundation, or anything else related to the library, please contact Jill Mackey at (307) 283-1006 or [email protected].