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What I Learned From Keith Rathbun

Keith Rathbun

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”  –Rabindranath Tagore

The world lost a good man on Tuesday. Keith Rathbun, publisher of The Budget Newspaper in Sugarcreek, passed away suddenly while working at his desk. According to the obituary written by staff at The Budget, Keith “became publisher and part owner of Scene Magazine and was instrumental in the creation of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and keeping it in Cleveland.  He later moved to Sugarcreek and became publisher of The Budget Newspaper, a job he loved as he worked to serve the community.”  Here is the article published in The Times-Reporter.

I came to know Keith when he began serving with me on the board of the Tuscarawas County Literacy Coalition.  Keith was very passionate about literacy and it meant a lot to me to know he made some time to become involved with TCLC despite the fact that he was so busy in so many other community organizations. He said no to so many things and yes to TCLC. That commitment was something I always admired. If Keith was going to do something he did it well and he did it to the best of his ability. I have a quote taped to my desk that I found somewhere and each time I look at it I think of Keith: “It is better off doing a few things really well than a lot of things poorly.” My respect for him grew even more when Keith came to see me one day at the library to tell me he intended to resign from the TCLC board. His responsibilities with the Ohio Newspaper Association and the National Newspaper Association were growing and he felt he could not serve TCLC well by continuing to be the board’s membership chair. That impressed me so much because I often find myself over-involved with things. All good things, granted, but things that I feel deep down I am not doing well because I am spread too thin. Keith’s integrity and honesty moved me to make some changes in my own life. And for that Keith, my wife thanks you!

One day Keith and I met for lunch at Bread Head in Dover and he regaled me with tales of his days at Scene Magazine. He told me stories of interviewing Eddie Money, Paul McCartney, Angus Young, and others and how he still treasures his friendships with many of those music icons to this day. I told him he needed to write a book and I made him promise to keep the library in mind for a book signing when that time came. I asked Keith to do a talk on his Scene Magazine days at Dover Rotary and he brought down the house with his stories and unassuming style of downplaying incredible conversations and moments with American cultural icons. As a fellow Lutheran, Keith and I would talk faith now and then. I found myself sharing things with him that I have never told anyone else.

In the end, Keith will be remembered not for his stories about a life in rock and roll or his success in the newspaper business. He will be remembered for the way he treated people. He didn’t beat you over the head with religion but lived a life of humility and service and purpose that made you want to be a better person. He taught me that we impact people more by what we do than by what we say. Keith showed me that if you are going to do something, you do it full-go and that if you cannot you need to be man enough and honest enough with yourself and others to say so.

So that book idea won’t happen after all. But that’s OK when you think about it. The best thing Keith ever wrote was the way he chose to live his life. Each relationship, every commitment, and every passion he had exemplified the story of his life. That was his life story–the one he was writing the entire time. Each of us has a deadline issued by that great editor in the heavens. Do yourself a favor and make sure the story you are writing is one that is worth retelling. So long Keith and thank you for being a friend.

Keith Rathbun Obit

 Courtesy of The Budget

-Jim Gill, Director


Picturing America Program Series

Picturing America Logo
The Library will host an art and American history appreciation program called Picturing America beginning on February 10 at 6:30 PM in the Community Room. Established in 2007 by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Picturing America is an innovative program for libraries that helps citizens gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art. Over the course of ten sessions, art educator Kathleen Riley of Dover will present forty carefully selected works of art spanning several centuries–all by American painters, sculptors, photographers and architects.  Future Picturing America program dates are: February 10, February 17, February 24, March 9, March 16, March 23, March 30, April 13, April 20, April 27. All sessions begin at 6:30 PM and are free and open to all. For more information or to register for the Picturing America series, please call 330-343-6123.

Money Mondays

Money Mondays

Mondays at 6:30 PM in the Community Room

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Take charge of your money this year with a series on important financial topics. Presented by Financial Advisor Dennis Lint of Edwards Jones. Call the library at 330.343.6123 to register for these programs:


January 25
:
Foundations of Investing

February 29: Leave It, Roll It, Take It: Know Your Employer Retirement Plan Options

March 28: Retirement: Making Your Money Last

April 25: Five Money Questions for Women

May 23: College: Getting There From Here

Edward Jones Logo


‘Tis the Season for Christmas Specials

A Claymation ChristmasAs a kid, I loved them. As an adult, I still do. Christmas specials, people. Christmas specials. A Charlie Brown Christmas, with the little tree and Linus’s speech. An animated Fred Astaire dancing around with a bunch of forest critters. Scrooge McDuck holding onto Jiminy Cricket for dear life as they fly through the air. I can’t get enough of them and have a steadily growing collection of these classic Christmas specials on DVD.

One of my very favorite specials is Will Vinton’s A Claymation Christmas Celebration. For those of you who aren’t in the know, this special is from 1987. It’s about an hour long and features two bickering dinosaurs as masters of ceremony for a variety show of Christmas carols. Think Fantasia. With clay and Christmas. The California Raisins perform “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” Quasimodo directs an orchestra of bells in “The Carol of the Bells,” and three camels steal the show in “We Three Kings.” Each segment is animated using stop-motion animation and clay figures, sets, and props. Everything is made of clay.

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Screencap from “Joy to the World” Animated by Joan Gratz

For years, one segment of A Claymation Christmas Celebration has confused me. “Joy to the World” always looked hand-drawn or painted to me. What was it doing in a claymation movie, anyway? This year, I finally learned Will Vinton’s secret. Her name is Joan Gratz, and she animated “Joy to the World” using clay painting. That’s right. It’s still clay. Watch the segment for yourself on YouTube. As a child, I loved the music and the colors of this segment. As an adult, I am blown away by the amount of time, energy, and talent that went into this two and a half minute song. It’s some of the most beautiful art that I’ve ever seen, and this year I got to see it with new eyes.

This Christmas, I hope you get to look at your own traditions with new eyes and see the time, energy, and talents that go into making Christmas the best time of the year.

 

Merry Christmas!

Liz

Teen Librarian

 

 


Meet Kent State Kicker April Goss

April GossMonday, January 4 at 6:30 PMApril Goss2

April Goss made history this past fall by becoming only the second female to score in a Division I college football game. Goss, a senior at Kent State University, kicked an extra point in a 45-13victory over Delaware State on September 12th. Goss will share the inspirational story of her journey to major college football and will sign autographs. Call the library at 330-343-6123 to register for this free community program.

Video of Goss’ historic kick can be seen here.


A Coach in Progress: An Evening with Marshall’s Red Dawson

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ycm2w2NYL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgJoin Marshall’s Red Dawson at 7 PM on Friday, January 15, 2016 for an evening of discussion and reflection.

A Coach in Progress depicts the catastrophe of the Southern Airways flight that crashed en route to Huntington, West Virginia, in 1970, killing all seventy-five passengers on board: players, coaches, and boosters of the Marshall University football team, as well as the flight crew. From this tragedy, the foundation of the Marshall football program was laid, and it has thrived ever since, culminating with the Thundering Herd being the winningest team in the NCAA Division I program in the 1990s, portrayed in the hit movie We Are Marshall.

This book is written from the viewpoint of Red Dawson, a former Marshall assistant football coach, who was one of the few team members not on the plane. Still suffering from survivor’s guilt decades after the crash, Red has recovered enough to finally discuss the disaster in full. What’s more, Red helped build a team with mostly freshmen and walk-ons in 1971, and thus was recognized as bridging “the gap from tragedy to rebirth” of the Marshall football program.

Red also reveals what he previously would not discuss: the seemingly insurmountable obstacles he faced prior to the plane crash and the difficulties that followed the tragedy, like the heated tension that persisted between school administrators and a harassed and confused Red as they all attempted to rebuild the devastated program.

This book is the story of Red Dawson’s involvement with Marshall football during the last near half century spent living with the memories of the worst sports-related air tragedy in history.

A book signing will follow the program, which is free and open to all. Call the Dover Public Library at 330-343-6123 to register.


From the Cellar

This month I would like to draw your attention to a collection that I recently processed and made available in The Roots Cellar: Subject Files. These are articles, pamphlets, and booklets that contain information relevant to the history of Tuscarawas County. Some of these came to me from an old vertical file maintained for years in a filing cabinet in the director’s office, others I added while searching for obituary requests or old photos in our microfilm collection. I found one such treasure in the February 25, 1965 issue of The Daily Reporter while looking for information on St. Joseph’s football team for a patron. This issue contains a plethora of Dover history. In the 27 pages of this file (searchable in our catalog by the title: “Take a good look: and see the wonderful community in which you live – Dover”) one can find things like a list of Dover Mayors, what Christian Deardorff and Jesse Slingluff paid for the 2+ acres in 1806 ($4622.00), information on the Tuscarawas County Children’s Home, pictures of our library (current building and the previous house), an article on Jeremiah Reeves, a photo of the plane that crashed in the middle of Walnut Street in 1943 (killing Addie Wendling, Edward Early, and Edward Early, Jr., his 12-year-old son), The Little Theatre, Dover Historical Society, the Basketeers, and yes, there is a picture of the 1946 St. Joseph football team. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of topics found in this issue of The Daily Reporter; let me just say that if you are conducting research on any aspect of Dover history, there is a good chance this file holds some valuable information.

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Check the local history section of our website for a complete list of subject files, and drop by The Roots Cellar on Thursdays to immerse yourself in the wonderful history of Dover.

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