Jill Holmes, Winner of the 1997 Edna Mae Phelps Award

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(The following is from the H. Louise Cobb & the Friends of the OSU Library Speaker Series held November 6, 1997. Mrs. Phelps presented Jill Holmes a plaque and honored her with the following introduction. Professor Mark Cox from the English Department wrote the nominating letter.)

The Edna Mae Phelps Award recognizes individuals who have substantially and unselfishly gone above and beyond duty to increase the effectiveness of the OSU Library. I am very pleased to announce that the recipient of the fifth annual Edna Mae Phelps Award is Ms. Jill M. Holmes, OSU emeritus librarian and OSU alumnus.

When Jill retired from the OSU Library in 1992, she asked that - instead of people contributing to a gift for her (as is their usual custom), they contribute to a staff development fund she had established in honor of two former library employees, Mary Greenberg and Marguerite Howland. And in 1996, Jill contributed enough to endow it. Such generous and thoughtful actions are typical of her - as is her dedication, energy and interest in the campus and community at large.

Just to name of few of Jill's many activities:

• 1992 she established the Wilma Mankiller Fund to purchase library materials on Native American issues. Later when she heard that the Library was establishing the Chief Wilma P. Mankiller Collection & Endowment, she immediately got involved and donated the $10,000 to endow it. At the same time, she also decided to sell land in Minnesota that had been in her family for more than 100 years in order to more fully fund this endowment and other projects she is involved in on campus.
• In 1995 Jill established an annual reading series she named "Poets for the Habitat and Friends." Last year she took the initiative to invite the Friends of the OSU Library, the OSU Department of English and Stillwater's Mission of Hope to co-sponsor the event and together they brought celebrated poet Stanley Plumly to Stillwater to a standing-room-only reading - in this very room as a matter of fact. In March 1999, Jill's continued generosity will bring poet C.D. Wright to campus as the third reader in the "Poets for Habitat and Friends" series.

As you can see Jill is a wonderful friend to the OSU Library and her vision will have a lasting impact on students and faculty who use the Library for years to come.

I am pleased to present Ms. Jill Holmes with the 1998 Edna Mae Phelps award.

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