Gwen Walker: A love of books and kids leads to 33-year library career

Talking to Gwen Walker, it’s hard to decide what the longtime school librarian likes better – books or kids. Actually, it’s probably both equally, with maybe an edge to the kids.

Walker retired after the school year as a school district library paraprofessional in the Lovell schools, and though she says that she isn’t a “real librarian” by college degree, she has done much of the library work for School District No. 2 for 33 years and actually started working in the schools 37 years ago.

Sitting down with a Lovell Chronicle reporter felt like coming full circle, Walker said, because her first job after graduating from Lovell High School in 1979 was at the Chronicle when she was hired by Pat Schmidt as a typesetter that fall when she was yet to marry, her maiden name being Gwen Bronkema. She moved into ad design and page layout before resigning to raise her two daughters in 1985.

She had married Greg Walker and had Stacy in 1984 and Christy in 1985.

Three years after leaving the Chronicle, she came back to the newspaper to fill in when then designer Cindy Asay was on maternity leave with her second child, Howard, in 1988 right at the time the Chronicle was converting to desktop publishing and Mcintosh computers. She did training during the conversion, which then later gave her a leg up for a school job.

Paying for Stacy’s lunch tickets heading into the 1989-90 school year, she noted the Mcintosh computer on secretary Nancy Robison’s desk and mentioned that she had worked the Macs at the newspaper. She said Robison joked, “Maybe you can help me use them.”

Knowing that Walker had some experience with computers, the school asked Walker to fill in for Sylvia Gams in the office of special services when Gams went to Cheyenne to serve in the legislature, working with Jim Staab the first year, Mike Terry the second year and Terry again in the newly constructed middle school building the third year. She also worked with Susan McArthur in the old middle school building (now torn down) typing up curriculum, then at the new middle school in ’91-92 and ’92-93, the second year as the curriculum secretary.

In 1993, a library position came open, and middle school principal Norm Opp asked her if she was interested in the position. She was, and the rest is history. She started library work in the 1993-94 school year.

“Mr. Opp thought I was organized, and so he asked me if I wanted to do library, and I’ve been there ever since,” she said.

Walker was hired as a library aide, working with Jill Greenlee and later Sherie Monk a half day at the elementary school and a half day at the middle school. When Monk became the middle school principal, she asked Walker if she would like to “be more in charge of the library,” with Monk available for decisions as the principal.

“She was going to still oversee the library, but I was going to take on a lot more responsibility over the libraries when she left for the principal (position), so I would touch base with her on decisions, but then I pretty much started doing (much more).”

Budget cuts took effect at that time, Walker said, so she got to be what she called “the rover,” doing the ordering for all three school libraries in the district while also planning activities and essentially running the elementary school library.

Over the last 30 years, Walker has been the stable foundation of the library system, the person with the know-how, experience and institutional memory. She has worked with many librarians and paras, noting Carol Schultz, Georgette Lewis, Shelly Lohof and Ruth Hammond during 18 years under Monk and then over the last 12 years under Carissa Camp with DeAnna Calvin and currently Danielle Henley and Cameron Frates.

“The libraries are in good hands,” she said.

She also enjoyed working with McKenzie Jameson, who worked with her for 17 years and decided to retire when Walker did.

“She is very detail oriented and enjoyed the kids,” Walker said. “She doesn’t like to be teased, so we got along well. I enjoyed working with her.”

Walker said she enjoyed being in the school when her kids were in the school and most recently when her grandsons Miles and Lane Bischoff were in elementary school. About three years ago, she realized that Lane would advance to the middle school at the end of the 2025-26 school year, and with husband Greg having retired as transportation director for the school district, she knew this school year would be her last.

She started writing down instructions and turning certain duties over to others, working with Frates at the high school and Henley at the middle school, with Camp over all three. With her retirement, the school has moved Isabel Montanez from the computer lab to the library at the elementary school.

Walker would never claim to be a full librarian, but she does have 33 years of experience to call on and wants to continue to help as she can.

“I feel like I’ve had on the job training, so it feels mean to just walk away, because then I feel like that would put it all on Carissa, Cameron and Danielle, so I’m coming back just for a few hours every week to help Isabel,” she said. “Then I’ll get to see the kids and my friends.”

Books and kids

Asked what she will miss the most about her job, Walker didn’t hesitate.

“The kids, that’s my favorite part,” she said. “They have scheduled times every week, and they come to the library. And we’ve done crafts. We always have a monthly theme, and then we do a craft toward the end of the month, but not every month. Sometimes we have book fair, and we do a Dewey Decimal scavenger hunt that the kids love. It’s way fun. The clues are a call number, and then they go find the book with the clues hidden in the back, and so that’s been really fun.”

For many years Walker has also helped organize the Wyoming Reads program for first graders and the Challenge of the Books for middle schoolers.

“I’m still going to help with that (Challenge of the Books), because I’ve already got my two books I’m reading for the summer, and will write the questions, so I will be able to help with that still.”

Besides the special programs, Walker said the job has certainly kept her busy.

“There’s always something, like dishes when you’re home, or laundry. It never ends. And so, when you have 300 kids coming through your room every single week, there’s books to put away, there’s books to repair, there’s books to order.”

Technology

Walker has found technology changes over the years to be both challenging and beneficial. She said Jill Greenlee had already moved away from paper cards for book checkout and return to a digital system. And now there are audio books and eBooks. Lovell schools use the Destiny library management program that tracks checkouts and the Sora program for eBooks and audio books to align with educational standards.

“One of the things I hated the worst is we’d come back to school and they’d upgraded our whole system, and then you were trying to get the kindergarten kids entered and get your library schedule and all that,” she said. “And then you had to go find the new place where it was on the computer. I was like, ‘Can I have the old one back and then learn the new one?’”

Technology changes, but for an educator like Walker, her love of the kids she helps to learn is eternal.

“The kids are my favorite part,” she said. “I will miss the kids the most. They just bring the energy. When we have in-service days, it’s just almost dead around the school. It’s too quiet. It always felt like something was missing without the kids.

“I like the energy of the kids, and when they’re not there, it’s not fun. But I’ve loved the school. They’ve been good to me. It’s been a great job. I have enjoyed it a lot.”

Even in the digital age, kids still love a physical book on paper, and graphic novels are especially popular.

“Graphic novels are huge right now,” she said. “A lot of people think that’s not a real book, but if they’re reading, they’re still reading, and they (teachers) do try to get them to graduate from the graphic novels into a real chapter book, but for the reluctant readers, the graphic novels are great.”

Reading is truly important, Walker said.

“If parents would even just do this from the time their kids are born; if they would just read to them for 15 minutes every single day, it would make such a huge difference for our kids if they would do that,” she said. “Kids still do enjoy being read to, and they still like to read.”

Walker said many people ask her what she’ll do now that she’s retired, like travel. But she said it’s really all about time with family, and she plans to continue to help at the elementary school.

“I feel really blessed with the library job, because there’s a lot to it,” she said. “I feel like I can easily be helpful, like putting books away or just showing Isabel what she needs to do. I could help put books away while she does (other things), because she has a family, too. So then she hopefully won’t be staying late, like I always did, to try to get it all done.

“I was bad about that; I didn’t want to leave. I remember that (fellow teachers) one time told me never stay late, so I left work and I pulled around into the alley and came back in, so they wouldn’t know, to put my books away, because I could never leave without having my books all put away.”

But she is happy with the extra time retirement will bring.

“I’m just happy to have a little more time for family and to just volunteer, to just be able to do some stuff to help people out if they need it,” she said. “So I’m happy to come back and volunteer at the school. And then with our daughter in Montana (Stacy), the grandkids are already excited because we’ll be able to go for more birthdays. We won’t have to be totally locked into the school schedule.”

Daughter Stacy Bronec of rural Fort Benton, Montana, where the family ranches and farms, has three children, and daughter Christy Bischoff of Lovell has two.

And now Grandma Gwen Walker will have plenty of time to spend with them all, loving every minute of it.