Connie Richardson - President

Connie Richardson was born in South Dakota, raised in Montana and has lived in Oregon since 1969. She and her husband Cliff have raised four sons on the McKenzie River and are currently enjoying 13 grandchildren. Connie retired in 2015 after teaching at the McKenzie School District for 30 years. The O'Brien Memorial Library has been used and enjoyed by her off and on since 1970. She has volunteered at the Library for 5 years, currently serving as the President of the Board. Reading, gardening, hiking and kayaking are a few of her time fillers.

Sherry Widdoes - Vice President. and Grants Writer

Sherry is originally from Shamokin, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Delaware. She earned a BA in biology from the University of Delaware and then lived in many places with her husband and children. After settling in Texas for years, she earned her MLS in Library Science from the University of North Texas. She retired from the Research Medical Library at Univ. of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center where she was the Technical Services/Collection Manager. She loves the outdoors, reading, gardening, traveling, kayaking, cooking and her family of 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

Aidan Wilson - Treasurer

Aidan’s work history includes being a horse patrol ranger with the National Park Service, Certified Vet Tech, Researcher in Entomology Dept at Penn State, and Producing venomous insect proteins for immunotherapy. She has 3 children and 2 grandchildren and has been living in the forest in Rainbow for one year.

Marlies Phillips - Secretary

Marlies was raised in the backwoods of New Hampshire before moving with her family to Oregon in 2015, eventually settling in McKenzie Bridge. A strong advocate for literacy, she is dedicated to making books accessible and fostering a love of reading across all ages. In addition to serving on the library board, Marlies supports local homeschool programs, encouraging curiosity and discovery in young learners. She also manages the library’s social media, website, and Libby support. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, gardening, and sharing stories with her family.

John Witte

John came to Oregon from Maine almost fifty years ago and, along with his partner, Deb Casey, and their children and grandchildren, enjoy their cabin in Blue River. Until retiring, he was the editor of Northwest Review at the University of Oregon, where he also taught Ecopoetry. He is a widely-published poet who often finds the McKenzie River working its way into his poems. The son of a librarian, he has always found in libraries a home away from home.

Sandra Angle

Sandra was invited to join the Board to help rebuild the library soon after the Holiday Farm Fire. She was our first webmaster and public media coordinator, also starting our Facebook presence. She currently handles promotions for events. Our first summer in the new building, Sandra coordinated the Summer Reading Program, along with 3 other Volunteers. Over 20 children signed up, along with some teens and adults. She solicited prizes from local businesses so kids had new selections to choose from each week and wrapped it all up at the end of the summer with a party. Bobbing apples, and an ice cream bar and much more fun was involved. While working in our temporary library, Sandra and her dog, Kyle, began appearing at local events, offering books for sale, reassuring community members the library was available at a temporary location and plans to rebuild were in the works. She began coordinating fundraisers. During those chaotic times, she had people asking her if she was that 'library lady'. After learning how many physical documents the library had been lost in the fire, she initiated use of storing information in the cloud to archive and protect future library documents. When we lost our beloved Volunteer Coordinator, Barbara McConnell, Sandra stepped into that role. She ran a Volunteer Recruitment drive to staff our new library and it opened with 22 volunteers staffing 5 days 11-5 and one evening until 7. Along with current Board responsibilities, she feels offering evening hours to our patrons is important and covers our Wednesday evening shift each week. Sandra appreciates structure and guidelines and assists with documenting library procedures and works at keeping the many tasks and processes handled by our Volunteers organized. Her youth was spent in libraries and it looks like her retirement years are circling back to that familiar space.

 Beverly Braun

Beverly has vast experience in all things library and book with passion for lifelong learning and literacy. Now retired, she was a bookstore owner and has 30 years of experience directing educational libraries. She is an active member of the American Library Association. She graduated from the University of Oregon with her undergraduate degree in history and graduate degree in Library Information. She is devoted to the Upper McKenzie River Community and particularly to the O’Brien Memorial Library, although she continues to volunteer for various nonprofit organizations as well.