Huntington City-Township Public Library welcomes Huntington native C. Bernard Huesing for an author visit and book signing at 2:00 pm on Wednesday, May 8 in the Main Library.   

His novel, The Trouble with Cass, is his first piece of fiction. This Civil War-era murder mystery follows the incredible life of Cass Brooks, the 19 year old daughter of a wealthy builder in rural Indiana.  Cass is a beautiful, intelligent, and resourceful young woman with few scruples, using her power, money, and charm to get what she wants – including her sister’s sweetheart.  An underlying murder plot full of twists and turns develops, while the catastrophe of the Civil War shatters and changes the nation.

Huesing graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a M.S in Business and Finance from the Krannert Graduate School of Management at Purdue.

He was a consultant and CPA with international accounting firms for more than ten years; the last of which he was a principal at Arthur Young and Company (now Ernst & Young.) He is a member of Mensa and Intertel.   C.B. served for four years aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Far East. A long-distance runner, he has completed 40 marathons, including seven Boston Marathons.

C.B. has been writing articles on business, hiking and running for years, and recently attended the Northwestern University Summer Writer’s Conference, the Greater Lehigh Valley Writer’s Conference, and the Midwest Writer’s Conference.

Copies of Huesing’s novel, The Trouble With Cass, can be purchased at the event for $6.95. No purchase is necessary to attend, and everyone is welcome.

For more information, please call 356-0824.  Huntington City-Township Public Library’s Main Library building is located at 255 West Park Drive, Huntington.

Terri Blackstock is a New York Times best-seller, with over six million copies sold worldwide. She has had over twenty-five years of success as a novelist. Terri spent the first twelve years of her life traveling in an Air Force family. She lived in nine states and attended the first four years of school in The Netherlands. Because she was a perpetual “new kid,” her imagination became her closest friend. That, she believes, was the biggest factor in her becoming a novelist. She sold her first novel at the age of twenty-five, and has had a successful career ever since.. Her goal is to entertain with page-turning plots, while challenging her readers to think and grow. She hopes to remind them that they’re not alone, and that their trials have a purpose.

Huntington City-Township Public Library and Huntington Area Master Gardeners will present a Mother’s Day make & take gardening craft workshop on Saturday, May 11th at the Main Library, 255 West Park Drive, Huntington.  Kids ages 4 years to Grade 5 are invited to decorate a flowerpot and listen to a gardening story, then fill their decorated pot with gardening soil and a plant to give away for Mother’s Day – these plants in their decorated pots make great gifts for moms, grandmothers, or any special person a child would like to honor on Mother’s Day.

 This workshop is free of charge, but space is limited and registration is absolutely required to attend. Adults and caregivers are encouraged to attend to assist younger children with their craft project. Call the Library’s Children’s Department at 356-2900 to register your child.

Children’s Bookstacking Contest @ the Main Library – 4:15pm – 5:30 pm, Monday April 15

Children in grades K – 6 are invited to stop by the Main Library anytime from 4:15pm – 5:30pm on Monday, April 15 to take part in our annual Children’s Bookstacking Contest in the Children’s Department. Each participant shall receive a small prize, and there will be a special prize for the TALLEST stack of all. This is a free activity, and no registration is required to attend.

Extreme Bookstacking Contest for Teens @ the Main Library – April 1 – 30

Young Adults in grades 6-12 are invited to participate in HCTPL’s Extreme Bookstacking Contest at the Main Library. During the month of April, teens are invited to stop by during the hours of 9am – 6pm, Monday through Thursday; or between 9am – 5pm on Fridays to find out how high they can pile a tower of books! Careful measurements will be taken of each competitor’s stack of books. All participants will receive Small prizes for all participants, and a special prize for the winner who stacks the TALLEST tower of all.

K-12 Bookstacking Contest @ the Markle Library

Kids & teens in grades K – 12 are invited to test their bookstacking skills at the Markle Branch Library April 15 – 20 in celebration of National Library Week. The contest is divided into two separate divisions; an elementary division for grades K – 5 and a senior division for grades 6 – 12, with prizes to be awarded for the highest stack of books achieved in each age group. Competitors may stop by the Markle Branch Library, 197 E. Morse Street, during regular library hours – 1pm – 7 pm, Monday April 15 – Friday, April 19, or from 9am – Noon on Saturday, April 20, to make their attempt at the TALLEST stack of all.

Want help with a gadget, device, phone, or other piece of technology? Need an introduction to social media or email? Interested in using the Library’s Digital Branch to do research on our databases, search for a new job or career, or download eBooks & eAudiobooks?

Huntington City-Township Public Library invites the community to bring their gadget troubles & digital wonderings to either library location on Wednesday, April 17^th . The technology geeks from the Library’s staff will be on hand  at the Main Library from 9am – 6pm and at the Markle Branch from 1pm – 7pm to show off the Library’s new Digital Branch, and to offer help with all kinds of technology – from Windows 8 to iPads, Facebook to web browsing, from scanning a photo to setting up a smartphone, from Tweeting to finding auto repair information on our Chilton’s database, and much more. It’s completely free to Get Digital @ Your Library, and no registration is required to participate. Bring any gadget, device or technology-centered questions you like – if it’s digital, we can help!

Jim Butcher is the author of The Dresden Files, Codex Alera, and a new steampunk series, The Cinder Spires. His resume includes a laundry list of skills which were useful a couple of centuries ago, and he plays guitar quite badly. An avid gamer, he plays tabletop games in varying systems, a variety of video games on PC and console, an LARPs whenever he can make time for it. Jim currently resides mostly inside his own head, but his head can generally be found in his home town of Independence, Missouri.

The Dresden Files is a series of contemporary fantasy/mystery novels, and is Butcher’s most popular work. He provides a first person narrative of each story from the point of view of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in modern-day Chicago. Butcher’s original proposed title for the first novel was Semiautomagic, which sums up the series’ balance of fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction.

In the world of The Dresden Files, magic is real, along with ghouls, vampires, demons, spirits, faeries, werewolves, zombies and other mythical monsters. Harry Dresden works to protect the general public, who are ignorant of magic and the dark forces conspiring against them. This makes it difficult for Harry to get by as a working wizard and private eye. The Chicago PD’s Special Investigation unit, when led by Karrin Murphy, regularly employs Dresden as a consultant to help solve cases of a supernatural nature.

In 2007, a television series based on the novels, also called The Dresden Files, aired for one season on the American Sci-Fi Channel.

Codex Alera is a fantasy book series that chronicles the coming-of-age of a young man named Tavi in the realm of Alera, an empire similar to Rome, on the world of Carna. Every Aleran has some degree of command over elemental forces or spirits called furies, save for Tavi, who is considered unusual for his lack of one. As the aging First Lord struggles to maintain his hold on a realm on the brink of civil war, Tavi must use all of his intelligence to save Alera.

Friends of the Library Spring Book Sale

The Friends of the Library will offer a two-day Spring Book Sale at the Huntington Main Library in celebration of National Library Week.  The sale will open at 9am on Friday, April 19 and continue until 4:30 pm.  A second day of book bargains will get underway at 11am on Saturday, April 20, and continue until 4pm.

Featured at the sale will be cookbooks, travel books, gardening, hobby, craft, and other DIY project titles, a large selection of mass-market and trade paperback fiction, and a special collection of must-see, rare and unusual needlework patterns, including patterns for crochet and needlepoint projects and much more.

Prices will start at 50¢ for mass-market paperbacks, $1.00 for hardcover books and most needlework patterns, and $2.00 for a small selection of gift-quality books.

Huntington City-Township Public Library invites the community to celebrate National Library Week with events for all ages to be held at both the Huntington and Markle library locations during the week of April 14 – 20. 

Annual Bookmark Designing Contest for Kids & Teens  (both library locations)

Kids in grades 1 – 12 are invited to submit their designs in Huntington City-Township Public Library’s annual Bookmark Designing Contest.  Designs should reflect this year’s overall Summer Reading Club theme, “Dig Into Reading!”  All entries must be submitted to the Library by May 22nd.  Entries may be turned in at either the Main Library or the Markle Branch.  Winning designs will be printed and given away during Summer Reading Club 2013, and winners will receive a small prize plus thirty copies of their winning design to give away themselves.

Annual Bookstacking Contests for Children & Teens

Children’s Bookstacking Contest @ the Main Library – 4:15pm – 5:30 pm, Monday April 15

Children in grades K – 6 are invited to stop by the Main Library anytime from 4:15pm – 5:30pm on Monday, April 15 to take part in our annual Children’s Bookstacking Contest in the Children’s Department.  Each participant shall receive a small prize, and there will be a special prize for the TALLEST stack of all.  This is a free activity, and no registration is required to attend.

Extreme Bookstacking Contest for Teens @ the Main Library – April 1 – 30

Young Adults in grades 6-12 are invited to participate in HCTPL’s  Extreme Bookstacking Contest at the Main Library.  During the month of April, teens are invited to stop by during the hours of 9am – 6pm, Monday through Thursday; or between 9am – 5pm on Fridays to find out how high they can pile a tower of books!  Careful measurements will be taken of each competitor’s stack of books.  All participants will receive Small prizes for all participants, and a special prize for the winner who stacks the TALLEST tower of all.

K-12 Bookstacking Contest @ the Markle Library

Kids & teens in grades K – 12 are invited to test their bookstacking skills at the Markle Branch Library April 15 – 20 in celebration of National Library Week.  The contest is divided into two separate divisions; an elementary division for grades K – 5 and a senior division for grades 6 – 12, with prizes to be awarded for the highest stack of books achieved in each age group.  Competitors may stop by the Markle Branch Library, 197 E. Morse Street, during regular library hours – 1pm – 7 pm, Monday April 15 – Friday, April 19, or from 9am – Noon on Saturday, April 20, to make their attempt at the TALLEST stack of all.

Get Digital @ Your Library (both Library locations)

Want help with a gadget, device, phone, or other piece of technology? Need an introduction to social media or email? Interested in using the Library’s Digital Branch to do research on our databases, search for a new job or career, or download eBooks & eAudiobooks?

Huntington City-Township Public Library invites the community to bring their gadget troubles & digital wonderings to either library location on Wednesday, April 17^th . The technology geeks from the Library’s staff will be on hand  at the Main Library from 9am – 6pm and at the Markle Branch from 1pm – 7pm to show off the Library’s new Digital Branch, and to offer help with all kinds of technology – from Windows 8 to iPads, Facebook to web browsing, from scanning a photo to setting up a smartphone, from Tweeting to finding auto repair information on our Chilton’s database, and much more. It’s completely free to Get Digital @ Your Library, and no registration is required to participate. Bring any gadget, device or technology-centered questions you like – if it’s digital, we can help!

For more information about Get Digital @ Your Library, call the Reference Department at the Main Library at 260-356-0824 or email the library at ask@huntingtonpub.lib.in.us.

Friends of the Library Spring Book Sale

The Friends of the Library will offer a two-day Spring Book Sale at the Huntington Main Library in celebration of National Library Week.  The sale will open at 9am on Friday, April 19 and continue until 4:30 pm.  A second day of book bargains will get underway at 11am on Saturday, April 20, and continue until 4pm.

Featured at the sale will be cookbooks, travel books, gardening, hobby, craft, and other DIY project titles, a large selection of mass-market and trade paperback fiction, and a special collection of must-see, rare and unusual needlework patterns, including patterns for crochet and needlepoint projects and much more.

Prices will start at 50¢ for mass-market paperbacks, $1.00 for hardcover books and most needlework patterns, and $2.00 for a small selection of gift-quality books.

Students in grades 6-12 are invited to participate in Huntington City-Township Public Library’s annual Young Adult Poetry Contest by entering their own original poem based on this year’s overall summer reading club theme, “Dig Into Reading!” or on the theme for the young adult division of summer reading club, “Beneath the Surface.”

Poems may be in any form of the poet’s choice, including haiku, limerick, ballad, and free verse, and must be the original work of the submitter.  Illustrations are optional but encouraged.  All submissions must be in good taste.  Poems will be judged by the following criteria:

• Understanding of the concept of a poem
• Creativity
• Legibility
• Originality
• Adherence to contest rules

Poems may be written using the theme “Dig Into Reading!”, “Beneath the Surface”, or one of the following themes:

• underground railroad
• time capsules
• lost civilizations
• paleontology
• catacombs
• caves & tunnels
• roots and growing things
• archaeology
• basements & cellars
• the subway
• under the earth’s crust
• beneath your feet
• dens & burrows
• free choice

Entries must be received no later than Saturday, June 1, 2013, and can be submitted at either the Main Library or the Markle Branch Library. Prizes, provided courtesy of the Friends of the Library, will be awarded to the winning entries.  Young adults who submit an entry to the poetry contest are invited to read their poems at the Library’s Epeolatry Poetry Club meeting in June. Copies of submitted poems will be on display at the Library throughout the summer, and become the permanent property of Huntington City-Township Public Library. Contest rules and guidelines are available at both the Main Library and the Markle Branch Library, and on the library’s website at www.huntingtonpub.lib.in.us/2013/04/poetrycontest2013. The Main Library is located at 255 West Park Drive, Huntington; the Markle Branch is located at 197 E. Morse Street in Markle. For more information, contact the Library at 260-356-2900.

Dr. Dwight Ericsson, PhD., will appear at the April 3rd meeting of the Huntington County Genealogy Society, to be held at 7 pm in the Indiana Room at Huntington City-Township Public Library.  Dr. Ericsson will be speaking about Jean Baptiste Richardville, the last great Akima, or civil chief of the Myaamia, or Miami people.

Dr. Ericsson is retired from the Merillat Center for the Arts at Huntington University, and is the co-author, along with his wife, Ann Ericsson, of the book, The Forks of the Wabash : an historical survey; published in 1994 by the Historic Forks of the Wabash, Inc.

This event is free and open to everyone  -  you do not need to be a member of the Huntington County Genealogy Society to attend.   Are you interested in local history and genealogy?  New members are always welcome to the Huntington County Genealogy Society.  Attend a meeting or call the Indiana Room for more information about the Genealogy Society @ Your Library!

More about Jean Baptiste (Peshewa or Pinšiwa) Richardville, last great Akima of the Miamis:

Jean Baptiste Richardville, born in 1761, was the son of a French fur trader father – Antoine Joseph Drouet de Richardville -  and a Myaamia mother — Tacamwa, sister of  both the Miami war chief Little Turtle, and the village chief Pacanne.  Richardville, whose Myaamia name was Peshewa  or Pinšiwa, meaning “wildcat”,  was culturally Miami, and lived in a multicultural trading village on the Maumee River in what is now Fort Wayne.  Richardville and his mother Tacamwa were among the earliest entrepreneurs native to the Allen County area. Together they built a trading empire based on control of the “long portage” between the St. Mary’s and Wabash rivers, which completed a pathway for trade that extended from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

He was also a skilled negotiator who won important concessions from the U.S. Government in treaty negotiations, many of which were held at the Forks of the Wabash Treaty Grounds in Huntington.  He signed the Treaty of Greenville in 1795 and several other treaties in which parts of southern Indiana were ceded in return for annuities. Richardville, as well as  the Miami people in general, did not support Tecumseh.

By 1818, the Miami people depended on annuities for survival and signed the treaty of 1818, ceding most of central Indiana to the United States. At this time, Richardville was the main leader of the Miami, having replaced Pacanne, who died in 1815. He was a wealthy and successful trader and businessman, who used his wealth to help needy Myaamia and his business contacts and skills as a negotiator to try to prevent the federal government from removing the Miami people from Indiana.

In 1840, as the principal chief he signed the treaty in which the Miami people ceded all their land in Indiana, but he obtained personal title to almost 5,000 acres of land, where in later years, landless Myaamia settled.  His efforts helped a large number of the Miami people retain a home in Indiana.

He was said to have been the richest Native American in North America when he died in 1841, with an estate valued at about $1 million at the time (about $23 million today).   At the time of his death, Richardville was the most wealthy man in the state of Indiana.