It seemed fated that Melody Jenkins would come to Moultrie and her self-described curious nature would bring her here to work for the Moultrie-Colquitt County Library almost 34 years ago.

“It will be 34 years on the first of September,” she said.

Jenkins was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of a teacher, who taught for 44 years. She knew that she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a teacher, too. She received her bachelor of science degree in education, with major concentrations in mathematics and special education, from Western Carolina University.

“I never intended to work in the public library. It was the furthest thing from my mind,” she said.

As, a point of interest, Norma McKellar, director of the children’s library at the Moultrie-Colquitt County Library, went to school with Jenkins from Kindergarten through college. She and McKellar did their student teaching in an American school in Barranquilla, Columbia.

“We’ve known each other forever,” said Jenkins.

After graduating, she taught 6th grade language arts at Oakdale School, in the same district where she had attended school.

“After about six weeks, I said ‘I won’t be able to do this for the rest of my life.’ I loved the interaction with the kids. We got along just great,” she said.

After the year was up, she went back and got a master of science degree in library science, with a concentration in children’s library services and a certification as a medical librarian, from the University of Kentucky. She said she wanted to stay in the education field and work in a school library. However, she made sure that her university was an American Library Association accredited school so that she could go into the public library system if she needed to.

Jenkins said when she was looking for a job, she saw on a bulletin board an advertisement for a children’s librarian or a director in training for the library in Moultrie. She said she had no idea where Moultrie was located. However, military friends of her father’s, Grace and Hugh Adderhold, were from Moultrie, so she decided to try it out.

The director of the library, Anna E. Schinkel, interviewed her over the phone, spoke with the Adderholds and checked her references. Her student teaching in South America held her in good stead because Schinkel told her it was one of the reasons she chose to hire her. Schinkel told her that anyone who would do student teaching in South America was up for anything and could handle anything.

“At the time, there was not enough money for a children’s librarian, so, the Service League took me on as a project and raised money to increase my salary,” she said.

Jenkins said she could count on the Moultrie Service League anytime she needed something and Anne Carlton would take her around and show her where all of the schools were located in the county.

After a year, Schinkel asked her if she was interested in becoming the director of the library and she accepted the position. The last thing Schinkel did before she retired was to hire Jenkins’ friend, McKellar, to be the children’s librarian.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in Moultrie,” she said.

She said she hadn’t come to Moultrie looking for a husband but knew that she wanted to get married and have a family.

“Two years to the day after I moved to Moultrie, I had my first date with my husband,” she said.

She married the late Stephen Jack Jenkins, a life-long resident of Colquitt County, the next May, she said.

“I’ve always been curious,” she said.

She said working in the library was interesting and entertaining. She said she has learned so many thing by trying to help people find answers to their questions.

“It’s a very rewarding profession because people who have questions that need to be answered, where do they go?” she asked.

She said even with the internet as a resource, there are many people who don’t know how to use it or don’t have access to it. They can come to the library and be assisted with finding answers on the computers, she said.

“I’m still a teacher. That’s what I’ve learned after all these years. I’m still a teacher,” said Jenkins.

She said she teaches people everyday and they come in with a variety of questions.

“There are interesting people who come in and interesting questions that get asked,” she said.

She said she has never had a “sad day” of work because she loved going to work every day.

“I was never a big public library user as a child,” she said.

She said she just sort of stumbled on the public library later in life and feels that she has gotten a much greater education in the past 34 years in the library than her formal education.

“I have a curious mind. ...It’s amazing to know that it’s a best kept secret in the country...what a library can do,” she said.

She said she found it to be really nice to be able to help people and to be able “turn the light on” in the mind of a child. She said she liked the daily contact with people and answering their questions so that they could learn and grow.

“That’s what education is about,” she said.

She said she had been working on some statistics for the past year and there were 95,000 people who came through the library’s doors. She said that 24,000 of them used the computers and there were between 8,000 and 10,000 children, during the school year, who came for story time.

She said what she was proudest of was that the library has been able to provide consistent, quality library service to the citizens of Colquitt County over the years.

“We may not be the first to have the newest and best thing in library services but we will be able to get it for our patrons,” Jenkins said.

She feels that she has been able to build on the great program which was already established, and it has been satisfying to her to know the people she has worked with over the years. She said they have been her friends and she felt rewarded in knowing them because they have had such an influence in her life.

“I love this community,” she said.

She said she never had a problem assimilating into this community, after moving from Cincinnati. She said she wouldn’t want to move anywhere else.

“Moultrie is my home now,” she said.

She said some people think that a person can’t get the things in a small town that they could get in a bigger city. She said she believed that was wrong because her children received the best education and were successful in their lives. She said her daughter, Maggie, was the events coordinator for the Perry Chamber of Commerce and her son, G.W. was completing his culinary studies in Italy.

She also said that the community gave her family the best care, in many ways, when her late husband was battling cancer. She said she believed that there were so many ways that the community pulled together to help individuals and work for the good of the community.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 34 years,” she said shaking her head.

She said it was also hard to believe that she found Moultrie, a place she had never seen before, and the library on a bulletin board. She said her uncle had a saying, “A blind hog will stumble on an acorn every once in awhile.”

“So, I guess I was the blind how who stumbled on this acorn,” she said laughing.

She said she had thought about retirement but she feels that her identity is so tied up with the library that she doesn’t have plans to retire anytime soon.

“I still enjoy what I do. I love coming to work everyday. I will do it until I’m not having fun anymore,” she said.

However, when she does retire, she said she was going to get a chaise lounge, have a stack of books beside it and not eat or sleep until she had finished with them.

“I don’t get to read nearly enough,” she said.

She said people assumed that the employees of a library got to just sit around and read all the time but she said she’s so busy that it’s hard for her to find time to read.

“I will use my library card when I retire,” she said nodding her head for emphasis.