Cerra Cathryn Anderson
Bald Knob, a neighboring town to Searcy, has developed a bookmobile through its public school systems to service children and families in the district. The bus stops at different locations across the district each week during the summer. Children and families who visit the bookmobile can check out books through a physical card system with a name and phone number, and they return the book when they visit next. Lisa Moore, the previous director of federal and special programs at Bald Knob, got the idea started.
“I went somewhere and saw the Beebe one, and it just kind of inspired me that we could do that with one of our old buses,” Moore said. “At the time we had a lot of money that we had for literacy, and so I presented [the idea] to the superintendent, and then the board approved for us to do it, and so we got busy.”
The bookmobile was developed in 2020, just as COVID-19 was hitting the community. The bus was originally funded and continues to be maintained through federal and state categorial money, specifically the money earmarked for literacy. The school renovated a decommissioned bus, removing seats to lay flooring and build shelves, and covering the windows with metal paneling. School librarians ordered hundreds of books to fill the shelves.
Moore said they were allowed to give food to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic, but current regulations have eliminated that service.
Moore appreciates the faithful visitors of the bookmobile.
“We don’t have as big of crowds as I would love to have with it, but we have a lot of kids that are faithful to use it, and they love it—the kids that come, they love it, and they wait on it every week,” Moore said.
Marcy Dugger, the current director of federal and special programs at Bald Knob, inherited the project from Moore and has worked to promote the bookmobile idea throughout the state.
“I presented last year at the Federal Coordinators Conference,” Dugger said. “I presented our bus, and like, I’ve had several people from around the state say, okay can you give us some more information on that, so it is picking up and becoming a pretty neat thing—just a community outreach, parent outreach for the schools.”
Dugger said parents have also checked out books.
“The parents that come, like I said, to me a lot of them, they want to check out a book too, so it gives them the opportunity to read, not just their kids, and then their kids to see them reading,” Dugger said.
Both Moore and Dugger advocate for various literacy initiatives in their school district, such as book vending machines where children can earn tokens and receive book rewards to build their own personal libraries.
Jennifer Byrd, a sixth grade math teacher in Bald Knob, is a frequent visitor of the bookmobile with her two children.
“Right after COVID time is when the public library shut down, and they were having to bag books and put them for curbside pickup, so we started using the book mobile,” Byrd said.
Byrd references the social media posts to know where and when the bookmobile will be stopping, and noted that the locations are strategically chosen–parks, church lots and even the public library serve as landing spots for visitors. She said she likened the bookmobile to an ice-cream truck.
“It’s fun, it really is,” Byrd said.
Moore shared her perspective on how the Bald Knob school district utilizes their resources to impact the community in unique projects and initiatives like the bookmobile.
“We may not be a big school, but the things that we like to do are the things that kind of make us unique,” Moore said.
