Wednesday, September 12, 2012

River Laker Resigns; Put Life Into Libraries

River Laker
Well crap! I guess it was inevitable, but River Laker has resigned as the guy who made the Roanoke City Library system cool and I, for one, will miss him. My pal Val Garner is reporting the resignation here.

Val quotes Riv as saying, “It is with a degree of sadness that I announce my resignation as Resource Development Coordinator at Roanoke Public Libraries, effective September 24, 2012. In the words of Thoreau, 'It seemed to me that I had several more lives to live.' And so, I am moving on."

River has been with the city for five years creating excitement around the hide-bound library system with promotions that sometimes bordered on a circus. He packed them in, showed people where the libraries are and had them using it as a resource.

River, always reveling as the center of attention, ran into trouble about 18 months ago when he stripped during a promotion at 202 Market Street. He was reprimanded, challenged the reprimand and wound up with a lesser role with the library. That would be hard for a live wire like River to take and his resignation is understandable. but it's hard to lose his energy and his excitement.

Good luck, Riv.
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5 comments:

  1. Beatrice P. BoydSeptember 12, 2012 at 8:57 PM

    Hello from a first time visitor to your blog, who just finished reading about your knee surgery and recovery. A friend recently went through this procedure and mentioned that it DID hurt a LOT. I found your site through Anita's Blue Country Magic and will return for future visits. We currently live on the VA eastern shore (relocated fro NJ) and will be taking our first Blue Ridge road trip in early Oct. Looking forward to seeing more parts of the state. Drop in anytime (back door) is fine at our blog site - we appreciate all visits. Forgive me for adding this, but the word verification captcha is really annoying.

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  2. UnknownSeptember 13, 2012 at 9:52 AM

    Bea: Wish I knew how to fix the word verification dealie.

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  3. UnknownSeptember 13, 2012 at 2:16 PM

    Seems like to many of our Roanoke family members just can't deal with "outside the box" creativity.

    Picture, if you will, all of the folks in Roanoke who were grabbing hold of River's coattails - high hat and all - enjoying the ride of their lives.

    He may be irreplaceable for quite a while.

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  4. UnknownSeptember 14, 2012 at 10:57 AM

    River has been such a breath of wonderfully unique air in Roanoke. He did so much to support local artists. Irreplaceable is right!

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  5. AnonymousSeptember 16, 2012 at 7:58 AM

    I am sure we haven't seen the last desperate gasp for attention from him.

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