PORTSMOUTH — The Portsmouth Public Library hosted a retirement celebration on Saturday, Jan. 9, in honor of Linda Woods-Jones, fiscal officer, who has given 33 year of outstanding service to the Library system.
Staff, family and friends, gathered in the lobby on Saturday for a reception held in Woods-Jones’s honor. It was a bitter sweet occasion, smiles of appreciation, and tears of sadness as Woods-Jones departs from what has been her place of employment for more than three decades.
Paige Williams, PPL Library Director, said Woods-Jones position entailed a tremendous amount of responsibility.
“Linda Woods-Jones is retiring after 33 years of service with the Library system. She started in 1982 as an administrative assistant for Charles Cook, who was the director then,” Williams said. “Then, in 1995 she became the fiscal officer, so she has been the fiscal officer here for over 20 years. She takes care of all of the financial matters of the Library, payroll, paying the bills, investing, everything that relates to finances for the library.”
Woods-Jones said she will miss her job, but plans to continue to visit the library regularly.
“I am really going to miss it. It is a great place to work, and it has been a very important part of my life for over 33 years,” Woods-Jones said.”Even though I am retiring, I am still going to be a faithful patron, and they are going to get to see me every other day, because I love to read books.”
As her retirement ensues, she said she and her husband plan to do some traveling. She has thoroughly enjoyed working with a great host of people.
“I have had the pleasure of working for some really great people. I started first working for Mr. Charles Cook, he is the one that hired me.,” Woods-Jones said. “Then, I worked for Beverly Cain, she was the next director, and now she is a State Library for the State of Ohio. A lot of our board members have been influential people, we have Mark Kuhn, he is now our Scioto County Prosecutor he used to be our board president. There is Alan Lemons, he is now a judge. I have had the chance to work with a lot of great people.”
Although it saddens PPL staff to see Woods-Jones retired, Williams said she is glad for her to discover the next chapter in her life.
“We are so sorry to see her go, but she has new adventures to discover. She is like our human Rolodex, she knows what has happened in this library for the past 33 years. We can go to her and say, Linda, “When was this part of the library built? She knows all of that. We are sort of losing 33 years of history with this library, which is very sad,” Williams said.
Leah Jenkins was selected by the Library board to take Woods-Jones’ position as fiscal officer, according to Williams.
“We just wish Linda Well, and good luck with the rest of her life,” Williams said.
The celebration also included a large sheet cake, plenty of refreshments, and a decorative table with library memorabilia all in honor of Woods-Jones.
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