The School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina presented its annual Literacy Leaders Awards Sept. 14 at the South Carolina State Library.
Established in 2007, the awards recognize individuals or organizations that had a statewide impact on literacy in South Carolina. This year’s recipients are Ginger Shuler, retired chief of youth services for Richland County Public Library; Pamela Lackey and Martha Smith, AT&T South Carolina African-American History Calendar; and Phyllis Ford and Marian Mentavlos, Charleston County: A Community of Readers (COR).
WLTX anchor Darci Strickland emceed the event, which included a welcome by University First Lady Patricia Moore-Pastides and remarks by Charles Bierbauer, dean of the College of Mass Communications & Information Studies.
Shuler, a public librarian for 35 years, helped amass the largest collection of quality children’s books in South Carolina and has coordinated more than 30 visits by nationally known authors, illustrators and editors of children’s books to the library. She also directed two RCPL outreach programs for at-risk children in childcare centers.
AT&T’s Lackey and Smith develop and promote the annual South Carolina African-American History Calendar that, for 30 years, has been an important resource tool for students, educators and the community. A creative example of literacy, the calendar contains information about the state’s past and the contributions of unheralded South Carolinians.
COR, established in 1991 by Ford and Mentavlos, promotes the importance and love of reading to families, schools and the community through events, activities, book drives, school awards programs and through collaboration with booksellers, businesses and non-profit and governmental organizations and agencies.
The awards were created as part of the School of Library and Information Science’s literacy outreach. Among those efforts is the popular and successful Cocky’s Reading Express, which takes student leaders, Carolina’s mascot and books to elementary schools throughout the state.