For more than two decades, Westfield’s Dean Palmer chronicled the lives and events of Pilot Mountain, spinning tales of the town’s fairs, churches, activities by charitable groups, and most important, its people.
Palmer was an accountant by trade, working at Johnson Granite Inc., but he spent many of his weekends and evenings covering and photographing the events of the town. Most of those articles were published in the weekly newspaper The Pilot, and later in The Mount Airy News after that paper absorbed the Pilot Mountain publication.
Palmer passed away unexpectedly a year ago, on Aug. 26, and next week the Charles H. Stone Memorial Library in Pilot Mountain will honor his work by opening a Little Free Library dedicated to his memory.
The Little Free Library will actually be inside a former The Pilot Mountain News newspaper box, making its connection to Palmer even stronger.
Little Free Libraries are a nationwide movement in which organizers will stack a small box or cabinet with free books, accessible to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Folks can come and take a book any time, and there’s no check-out or sign-up procedure. The only thing asked is that the person either put another book in its place, if they have the means, or return the book after reading it.
“We’ve never had one here,” said Diane Palmieri, library program assistant at the Stone library in Pilot Mountain. “We have been thinking about starting a little free library here for people when the library is closed. We’ve been thinking about that for some time. When Dean passed away, we were all very touched about that. He not only wrote stories that were helpful for the community, but he was very supportive of the library.”
“It took us a while to put those together, but we eventually got those ready,” she said. The library plans to have three Little Free Libraries — one at the front entrance of the Charles Stone facility, one at the playground next to the Armfield Civic Center, and a third one in an as yet undecided location.
“We have a plaque dedicating this one to Dean that will go on top of it,” she said of the box to be placed at the library’s front entrance. “Dean shared our stories for about two decades,” she said, adding she was not sure when he began writing for the Pilot Mountain News. She said as of last week she had researched 21 years and was still finding his stories.
“He shared our stories, and we want to keep sharing in his honor,” she said of the decision to dedicate the first one in his memory.
Sandra Hurley, regional publisher for the Mount Airy region of Adams Publishing Group, was happy to see Palmer and his work being recognized by the library.
“We were so fortunate to have Dean working with us for many years. You could tell in his writing, that he loved the Pilot Mountain community. He was always quick to offer to cover the various events in the Pilot Mountain area, and enjoyed meeting people and sharing their stories,” she said.
On Monday, Aug. 29, at 6 p.m., the library will hold an official dedication ceremony for the Little Free Library and a plaque commemorating Palmer’s work in writing about the community.
“We’re going to have a display we’re putting up with the stories he wrote over the years,” Palmieri said. “We’ll just have a very short ceremony and a reception, we’ll have a couple of people say some words. We’ll have a display set up inside the building, “
Palmieri said the Little Free Library at the entrance, as well as the others, will be fully stocked when they open, with books donated to the library.
“We get very good quality viable books,” she said. “We’re going to share those in the little free library. People are welcome to share their own books if they want to do it that way. It is very much a take a book, leave a book kind of thing.”
“We really want this to be something the community can appreciate and enjoy. We recognize our hours are limited, and it’s hard for some people to get here and get the books and resources they need, and this hopefully is a way some people can get those books.”
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com