-For Dicksy Howe-Noyes, May 2011
From the first, she found herself
at home in the stacks,
embraced by books,
by government docs,
by all those words
and all those worlds,
her rich treasure-trove.
Later, she found herself
at home in the classroom
with a passion,
a creative knack
for teaching students
how to navigate
the information highway,
how to hang on tight
for the rocket-ride
of research, discovery.
And she found her spirit
much at home in a team
of Global Studies profs
prepping students
for travel far
from the prairie,
far from the safety
of preconceived notions,
of limited, parochial plans.
Always, she found herself
at home with change,
hungry to learn more,
to seek a better way to help
others map their future,
never content to stay still,
always moving, reaching
for another reference book,
turning the page to find
a new idea to spark learning,
to open hearts to all they might
hold while traveling through
this spacious, shining universe.
-Marianne Murphy Zarzana
If you know Dicksy as a fellow SMSU colleague, as a library instructor, or in another capacity through the library, please mail her a note or card (to the SMSU Library) to congratulate her on her retirement from SMSU this spring and to wish her well with all her new creative adventures.