Roberts Library to honor long-time booster Lois Hall

Lois Hall will be honored by the Hazel Mackin Community Library and Library Board of Roberts in recognition of her 38 years of support at an open house event in the community room of the Hazel Mackin Community Library from 4 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 25.

“I’m very pleased that we are going to honor somebody who is a very special person,” said Dora Rohl, president of the Library Board of Roberts. “She is the kind of person who will help anyone in need.”

Hall has been supporting the Hazel Mackin Community Library since 1974 when she was a part of a group of Roberts-Warren women assembled by Leona Colbeth, who then lived on Main Street in Roberts, to discuss and help address the needs of the community. One of those needs was the concept of a local library, Rohl said.

Rohl said the group gained approval for the project from the Roberts Village Board, and began fundraising through bake sales, community breakfasts and dinners, door-to-door soliciting, letter writing, softball tournaments and an auction of items solicited from businesses in surrounding cities and villages.

The Hazel Mackin Community library opened in 1975, and Rohl said Hall has never stopped helping the library in any way she could. She helped make the new library building a reality too.

“I’m real proud of our new library,” Hall said. “I did what I could.”

Hall said she is honored by the library board’s choice to hold a celebration for her, but she doesn’t think she is the only one who deserves praise.

I felt honored when they asked me,” Hall said, “but I didn’t do any more than anybody else did.”

Hall said one of her favorite activities she has participated in with the library was taking some children to Fort Snelling.

“The children loved it, and I enjoyed it too,” Hall said.

Rohl said the library board has appreciated Hall’s help over the years, including her help with fundraising when the library has needed it.

“I’m very proud of the Hazel Mackin Community Library,” Rohl said, “and she is a part of it.”

Tags: communities, roberts, lifestyle, books