Rea Weyrich, Director of Whitewood Public Library, will retire on February 20, 2023 after 25 years of service to that small, rural community. Rea recognized the importance of the services provided by the South Dakota State Library. The electronic resources and databases, as well as interlibrary loan system, enabled her to provide resources to the patrons of the Whitewood community that would otherwise not be available to them. The professional development opportunities offered online or in person allowed her to grow in her capacity as library director. She also appreciated the collaboration and comradery among the other public libraries in the state.

Rea saw the Whitewood Public Library as a hub of opportunities for all patrons from preschool children to senior citizens. She held preschool story hours, literacy walks, and after school programs for the school age children, as well as summer reading programs for all children in the community. She arranged for informational and sharing events which ranged from wellness to historical to cultural to arts and crafts, just to name a few.

Preservation and awareness of the role that Whitewood and the Crook City area played in the historical development of the Black Hills region is a passion of Rea’s. From this interest came collaboration with local historians and artifact collectors to create a usable document and artifact collection for the public’s use. This also evolved into collaboration with teachers and staff at the Whitewood Elementary School to create units of study focused on local history and the history of South Dakota. One of the most popular activities for the fourth grade students was a “Historical Tour of Whitewood” in which the students dressed in period garb from the 1800’s and walked around Whitewood reading historical markers and plaques on the buildings and listening to a local historian share about the development and growth of Whitewood and Crook City in that era.

Rea made the Whitewood Public Library a welcoming place for patrons to come and check out books and other resources. She was available to show patrons new books that had arrived or suggest books in the library’s collection as well as to assist them in requesting books from other collections. Her service to the community of Whitewood is greatly appreciated.