Library Gets First New Director in 38 Years

The Hocutt-Ellington Memorial Library downtown will get a new director this month for the first time since it was just a small, one-room collection of books in the old town hall.

Christie Starnes began her new duties Monday, Dec. 19, taking over for longtime Director Betty Coats who's retiring at the end of the month after 38 years.

Starnes, who began working as a volunteer librarian's assistant while still in grade school, and then continued to work in libraries all through high school and college, said her dream all along has been to help run a library in a small town like Clayton.

"I love the closeness of a small town, and I want to be a small-town public librarian," Starnes said. "I'm hoping to find a home here in Clayton within walking distance of the library. That would be perfect."

She said her first contact with a library came as a small child when the Bookmobile came to her neighborhood in Monroe. She was fascinated.

"I would always give books as presents, and receive books as presents," she said. "That's what I like to do."

As she got older and more experienced with library work, she began to keep up with the world of writing, which still fascinates her today.

"It's great to know what's coming out and be able to tell people," she said.
"There's an excitement to that that's hard to explain."

For the highly-respected outgoing director, known affectionately as Miss Betty, these last few days of December will be a time of reminiscing and telling stories, like the time back in 1981 when the town built the present library building a block or so from the old Town Hall and the Boy Scouts formed a chain from that one-room library to the new building, transferring more than 7,000 volumes hand-to-hand from one building to the other.

"That was a sight to see," Miss Betty said.

She's seen quite a few sights over the years, none better than the thriving library she's passing on to someone who wasn't even born when she decided to made it her life work.