Staff report

After initial delays, the D. R. Moon Memorial Library Board officially has two new members. Stanley area residents Marge Konik and Jennifer Castellano introduced themselves at the October library board meeting, after a vote on Konik joining the board was initially struck from the August 2020 board meeting agenda, following a document being given to board president Cathy Ryba asking whether it was appropriate for library board members to take a vote on Konik’s approval. Ryba then removed the matter from the August meeting agenda, before revisiting the matter in October, once Konik and Castellano had both been approved by respective authorities outside the library board.

Prior to the official October introduction of the two, Konik was approved to a one-year term on the library board under “consent items” in the September 8, 2020 Stanley Common Council meeting agenda, confirming her appointment by Stanley Mayor Al Haas to replace Sandy Thorson on the library board. Jennifer Castellano, meanwhile, was appointed by Stanley-Boyd Superintendent Jeff Koenig as the school district’s representative to the sister governing body, replacing Lance Carlson. Konik began her introduction, making it known she was a long-time area resident and happy to serve.

“I'm Marge Konik, the new Board Member,” she said. “My husband Larry and I have been in the Stanley school district for thirtytwo years, now, and we both retired three years ago.”

Saying that her bachelor’s degree was in health information management, Konik had gone on to obtain a Master’s in Education and had been a CVTC instructor for over two decades before retiring three years ago. Konik said she had served as a board member for organizations at the state and national levels, along with local organizations during her career at CVTC. Konik and her husband had built a new home in the city a year ago, with her being asked by Ryba if she would be interested in joining the library board. Also introducing herself at the October meeting was Stanley-Boyd teacher Jennifer Castellano, originally from Michigan before transplant to the area.

“I'm Jennifer Castellano,” she introduced herself this October. “I go by Jan, or Jenny. It depends upon whether I'm in trouble,” she said to group laughter, before continuing on. “When I got my first teaching job, everyone called me Jennifer, and I was like,” she said, making an expression of startled surprise. “But this will be my tenth year of teaching,” she went on. “I started off right-out of college. I taught high school for four years in a rural village in western Alaska. And then we missed our family, so we moved back to this area,” she said.

Originally from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan herself, Castellano’s said her husband’s family is from the area of Luck, Wisconsin, in Polk County. Taking a job with the Eau Claire district for two years, Castellano later moved with her family to the Wilson area in northeast Eau Claire County, “because Eau Claire was a little too big for us after being in a village in Alaska,” she said at the October meeting.

Falling in love with the area, Castellano took a teaching position in the Stanley-Boyd District, being asked if she wanted to be on the library board by district superintendent Jeff Koenig, the local district appointing one representative to the library board.

“And I think he was startled how fast I said yes,” Castellano said of her response to the superintendent’s question of serving on the library board in Carlson’s stead, who retains his position on the school board. “I said, ‘yeah. Why not.’ I've got two young girls. I have always cherished the library wherever I have lived,” she made known.

With library board meetings currently being held at the Stanley Fire Hall in the wake of coronavirus instead of the (somewhat more constrictive) library basement, the local memorial to Northwestern Lumber Company executive Delos Rensselaer Moon Sr. is nonetheless still around and here, a full 23 years after it was originally voted to be abandoned in 1997 for potential new digs that never materialized, on what is now the Halterman lot, newly purchased by them from the City.

Still to be seen but important to the postcoronavirus age is whether a renewed commitment and some major TLC from area volunteers to the library as an institution can keep it where it now stands for many years to come—and then some. A big welcome and thank you to Konik and Castellano for willingness to serve on the library board!

Nevin Lein contributed to this story and took the photographs.

Marge Knoik