One afternoon last week I stopped in at the local library. The local branch of our county library is housed in what was once the Bank of America/Boatmen's Bank/Centerre Bank (not sure if the Bank of Kennett was ever housed in that facility or not) building on North Main Street.

The library board did a great job of converting the generous gift from BOA to the county and except for the drive-up windows one would never know this was a financial institution at one time.

However, those drive-up windows caught my attention.

There was a spot of rain around one the afternoon I went by the library and that got me to thinking. Why couldn't library head honcho Jo Nell Minton convert those teller lanes to book drops?

Oh, I know there is a book drop just outside the main entrance, but think about this idea just a minute. Rainy days the patrons would just drive up and drop their book (DVD/CD/tape) deposit (pun intended) in the slot used by the bank(s) for banking transactions.

Couldn't you just see Jewell Wayne Davault as the teller, er, librarian standing at the window with s big smile on her face? We might even be able to talk her into going and getting a book for us if we know the title of a particular tome we wanted to read next. Then again, that might be pushing things just a bit.

However, it was pointed out that Regina Lee is hanging out at the library these days. Regina's legs are just a bit younger and she's been known to play a little softball so maybe she can be the one to go get the books for drive up customers.

Instead of getting change back like a local fast food restaurant popularized in a slogan years ago I'll bet if Jo Nell were to give her a bag of lollipops Jewell Wayne would pass them out just like tellers at those windows did when the library was a bank.

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She made it

Earlier this month the annual St. Louis Marathon was staged in the Gateway City. Last week I caught up with one of our local marathoners whose adventures we've chronicled here before.

Marsha Blanchard makes a habit of running marathons. Okay, truthfully she runs half-marathons but any running more than a few minutes on the treadmill counts as a marathon to me. A half marathon is 13.1 miles in length and Marsha has reminded me don't forget that last tenth of a mile.

Marsha was so excited about running in the marathon she went to St. Louis a couple of days in advance. Either that or she was so excited about playing with her grandbaby she went up early.

Arriving on Friday, Marsha began her preparation for the Sunday race. They went to the Cardinals ballgame, sat for an hour while the umpires debated the amount of water on the field then decided to cancel the game. The family went back to her daughter's house where Marsha played with the baby for a while.

Saturday was another day to prepare and Marsha did so by playing even more with the grandbaby, and spent some time talking a little later into the night than she probably planned.

Sunday was race day. Marsha was at the line ready to go. Although, she admitted to thinking she was a little tired and the thought of holding that grandbaby a little longer probably went thru her head. Marsha said once the race began she was ready to go and put all those negative thoughts out of her head.

She did admit to being a little challenged by the hills.

"That's probably the hilliest race I've run," she said. "We don't have a lot of chances to practice running hills in this part of the country."

Sheriff Bob Holder was standing in the group listening to Marsha tell us about her experience. He suggested she might go to Campbell and run back and forth over the viaduct there for some hill training.

Marsha gave a very good accounting of herself in the race. According to results posted on the marathon's website Marsha finished in 89th place in her division of "experienced" female runners. Just as a point of reference there were over 16,000 people in the race and 239 women competing in her division.

Actually, Marsha was only one of a pretty good contingent from this area that competed in the race. There were seven other women from here who ran in the race according to the website; Mallory Blanchard, Sheena Blanchard, Sheila Carter, Ashley Daugherty, Kim Daugherty, Tabatha Dement and Ada Robinson all raced up and down those same hills.

And, we note that Shelia Carter placed in 42nd position in her division.

The male runner I could find from this area that ran in the marathon was Rocky Covington.

Rocky finished in 22nd position in his 19-and-under division. There were about 650 runners who competed in that division.

If you're interested in running in next year's marathon give one of these folks a call, I'm sure they would enjoy the company.

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Paid attention

We note that Mike Hunter paid attention to the suggestion/resolution offered here that he pay the entry fee for his team in the KCC three-man scramble. The team was a winner last year and one of his friends suggested Mike's major contribution might be paying the team's entry fee.

The tournament was held last weekend and Mike admitted he did indeed pay the entry fee. Although last year's anchorman, Bryan Shumate couldn't make it Mike and Ken Shumate were able to coax older son, Clayton into taking his spot.

Bud Hunt is the publisher of the Daily Dunklin Democrat.