News Flash! After ten years of strong leadership from Director Madge Slavec, the Gila Valley Library announces Madge’s retirement this spring and the coming of Esti Gutierrez as the new library director. Esti, who was raised in the Cliff-Gila community, will start next June.
Esti brings over twenty-five years of experience as a classroom teacher and as a director of the STARBASE program, a science-oriented program focusing on fifth graders. She has worked in the schools in Las Lunas, NM and at Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. She has developed new programs, written successful grant applications, and managed a staff and volunteers. By her own description, Esti has a “people-centric nature” and she wrote, “My qualifications and personal strengths have the potential to continue the great work you all have started.” The STARBASE program she ran teaches children rocketry, computer coding, robotics and many more science and technology subjects. Esti noted that the Gila Valley Library did not exist when she grew up in Gila, and “I am impressed with this gem of a library . . . I want to be part of it.”
The library board of directors is excited by having the new director lined up to start in June and they expect her to expand library programming for children of all ages. “Esti will bless the library with intelligence, creativity and energy,” said departing director Slavec.
GVL will hold an open house in June, to introduce Esti to the library and the community, and to welcome her back home.
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MERRITT HELFFERICH REMEMBERED
[August 10, 1935 – May 2, 2019]
Merritt, demonstrating magnetism to STEAM Camp kids in 2017
