Passion & Purpose: Winter 2025-26
"Beauty inspires curiosity and creativity."
Chapters of community effort helped bring the brand-new Texas County Library to be. The nearly $3 million facility opened in October, effectively doubling the size of the previous library and offering space for locals to learn and grow.
“The very first week ... 600 books were checked out, and I know that’s never happened,” says Louise Beasley, library director. “We want people to come in and see what we we’re doing. I did have a patron come in and say to me, ‘I was a little skeptical about this library. And I’m very glad that I came in here, because I am just overwhelmed.’”
The new library illustrates the value of planning for the long game. In its case, plans for the new facility — that would replace the library built in the 1950s — began about 15 years ago when a new FEMA shelter was built in downtown Houston.
“(The FEMA shelter) was engineered at that time to carry the weight of a library on top,” says Brad Gentry, longtime newsman who led fundraising for the library and is a board member of the Houston Community Foundation. “But it wasn’t until about three years ago that all the different funding sources were available, and we were successful in tapping all those.”
The Houston Community Foundation raised about $140,000 to a fund named in memory of Kathy Richardson’s granddaughter and designated for the construction of the children’s department. Decorated with butterflies and other natural elements, it is now known as the Evelyn Marie Dieckhaus Creative Center.
The district is funded by a 10-cent tax levy, creating a need for additional resources. Ultimately, American Rescue Plan Act funds came into play, as did local fundraising for the new hub of the Texas County Library district. The Houston Community Foundation also received a $4,000 Affiliate Action Grant from the CFO in April 2025 for native landscaping at the library.
“Because of the low levy, the board has always been looking for opportunities to bring money in,” says Gentry. “Along the way, there’s been some pretty good leap-forward movement because of estate giving.”
One example: The late Elizabeth Allen, a longtime library volunteer who left nearly $1 million to the library after her death in 2015.
The library also has plans to work with local students to improve reading, a skill that saw decline through the COVID-19 pandemic. The library hopes to eventually hire a coordinator to help create curriculum to enhance opportunities at the facility, which is located down the street from the school.
Right now, just the sight of more students using the new facility is considered a good thing.
“Kids are starting to come in a little bit more, wanting to sit around and study,” Beasley said. “Even if they’re in here talking, they’re behaving and they’re in the library.”
The new library integrates a lot of light, which shines through large windows upon a bank of computers — an asset in the rural area where internet access is not always assured. A conference room offers space for community meetings; there’s even a business center with a computer and printer.
The space also leans into the natural world. Out front, a butterfly bench was built by the local welding class; one student took the lead in its creation. Butterflies connect library spaces, including the Evelyn Marie Dieckhaus Creative Center, the children’s department that serves to inspire young patrons through the natural world.
Lifelike snakes, bugs, flowers and other colorful visuals stand in memory of 9-year-old Dieckhaus, who was killed in a Nashville school shooting in 2023. Grandparents Joe and Kathy Richardson, who live in Houston — where Dieckhaus regularly visited — helped develop the children’s wing in her memory. They were aided by more than 160 donors from the community and beyond who contributed nearly $140,000 to the Evelyn Marie Dieckhaus Creative Center Fund held by the HCF. “It’s an inspiration of the beauty of God’s creation,” says Kathy Richardson of the children’s department, but those sentiments tie to the entire library.
“I think that small towns deserve beauty just as much (as larger places). To suppress learning, you take away beauty. Beauty actually inspires curiosity and creativity, and so I think this library fits all that.”
—by Kaitlyn McConnell
