OCPL Volunteer wins Gov’s Volunteer Direct Service Award

A longtime volunteer of the Oconee County Public Library has been recognized for her service in the Palmetto State.  Last week, Ann Rogers was presented with the South Carolina Governor’s Volunteer Direct Service Award for her genealogy work in the SC Room at the Walhalla Library.  Oconee County Public Library publicity director and Seneca Branch manager Blair Hinson gives details. “Ann Rogers has been a longtime volunteer at our Walhalla main branch.  She works in our South Carolina room and as Phillip Cheney, our director said at our board meeting, for a county our size to have the kind of information that we have available to us, she has almost single-handedly recorded some much information about the cemeteries here in Oconee County and helped indexed newspapers and things in our genealogy there in the South Carolina room, we are very fortunate to have that available to us.” Hinson tells more about Rogers receiving the award from Governor Nikki Haley. “She was previously awarded the first annual Sarah Mills Norton, for whom the Walhalla Library was named, award at our recent Volunteers Rock dinner. She was nominated by Megan LaVere and won the Governor’s Volunteer Direct Service Award.  They went down to Columbia last Thursday, Phillip Cheney, our director, Heidi Holmes, the branch manager for the Walhalla Library, Megan LaVere and Janice Lovinggood, our administrative assistance and volunteer coordinator for the OCPL.  Mrs. Rogers was presented with that Governor’s Volunteer Direct Service Award.  We have some great pictures on our website with them and S.C. Governor Nikki Haley.” The Oconee County Public Library cannot thank Rogers enough for her dedication and service, concludes Hinson. “Basically she is a volunteer and last year she logged somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,700 hours.  A library the size of Spartanburg or Greenville has a four or five person staff doing this work as part of their job.  But for a small county library system with four branches and only 32 employees to have a special volunteer like this to come in and do the type of work that she has done for these number of years and make this stuff available is just incredible.” To see pictures of Rogers receiving her award from Gov. Haley, visit the Oconee County Public Library’s website at ww1.youseemore.com/oconee.