Los Banos Rotary’s Colleen Menefee memorial dedication set for Merced County library

On May 11 the long-awaited ribbon cutting of the Los Banos Rotary Club’s memorial to Colleen Menefee will take place in front of the Los Banos branch of the Merced County Library, 1312 S. 7th St..

On that Wednesday evening, starting at 6 p.m., the club will dedicate to the community the new memorial — which consists of two benches bolted to a new concrete pad, newly planted trees and a granite marker recognizing Colleen.

The Friends of the Los Banos Library will provide refreshments at the dedication. Everyone in the community is invited.

It’s fitting that the Friends and Rotarians will be working together, since Colleen was a longtime member of both organizations.

The project has been a long time coming, in the works since Colleen passed away over a year ago. The Rotary Club has received help on this $5,000 project from many sources and actions, including these:

The approval from the County of Merced (especially Supervisor Scott Silveira, who represents the Westside).

The county operates the Los Banos public library, to which Colleen was so dedicated.

The approval from the City of Los Banos, which maintains the grounds around the Los Banos library.

The help of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department operations manager Joe Heim and its crews, which helped prepare the ground for the concrete.

The volunteer labor of Rotarians Manuel Jimenez and Dick Gerbi, who poured and finished the concrete.

The donation by Whitehurst Funeral Chapels of a granite marker honoring Colleen’s service.

The work of Ronny’s Landscaping, which, in conjunction with the City of Los Banos and the Friends of the Los Banos Library, redesigned the spaces to left, to the right and behind the memorial, adding trees, plants, large rocks and new surfaces.

Donations totaling $2,500 — from 17 individuals and families (including many Rotarians) from Los Banos to Santa Monica, CA, ranging from $15 to $500.

And a large donation of $2,500 from the Westside Community Foundation, of which Colleen was also a member.

At the May 11 ribbon cutting many persons will take pride in this project, which serves as a fitting tribute to Colleen, a Rotarian who took joy in serving her community and took pride in its library, its trees, its schools, its arts and its people.

In the weeks and months after the ribbon cutting I hope persons young and old will sit on these benches under the newly planted trees and read books they just checked out of the library. That would have made Colleen smile.

On another note: May is the time of new life, when flowers of all colors bloom and new green leaves spring from trees. It’s appropriate in May to think about not only new life but new chapters in life.

What will the next chapter of my life be? This spring, for some reason, I have been asking myself that question. I have a hunch a “next chapter” is coming, but I don’t know exactly what that chapter will look like.

That’s the way chapters work. When we turn a page, we aren’t quite sure what we’ll see. As I Iook back on my life, I realize most of my life’s chapters were surprises. I didn’t plan them; they just happened. That’s probably true for most people reading this column

In my 39 years of writing columns, for instance, each chapter in this part of my life just happened. To begin with, I never planned on being a columnist.

In 1983 I was asked by Bill Brehm, the Enterprise’s publisher then, to write a weekly column. At first I hesitated, but after he encouraged me, I agreed. That turned out to be a handshake agreement lasting four decades.

The Enterprise has gone through many changes since 1983, with several different publishers and several different editors. In every case I didn’t know whether they would want me to continue. In each case, as it turned out, they did.

People like Tom Wright, Rhonda Lowe, Kim Yancey, Ron Parsons and now Victor Patton have all been willing to keep me on and have treated me kindly. For that I’m grateful.

It has been a wild ride writing for a newspaper over the past 39 years, as the world has changed. Nowadays many people get their news from social media. Newspaper readership and advertising aren’t what they used to be.

Nevertheless, I still believe in the importance of a local newspaper. It’s like a town square, a place where a community can find in one place almost everything happening in town.

Focusing on local news also brings a community together, which today is more important than ever. Our country and our state are more politically polarized than ever.

Local newspapers, on the other hand, are mostly non-political; they simply let folks know what’s happening close to them, in city government, schools and community organizations, as well as on fields and in gymnasiums.

Another part of my life will also have a next chapter, my work in education, which I’ve been doing since 1968, when I taught my first college class.

I’ve continued to believe during the past half-century in the importance of education — especially in community colleges, which represent the best example today of the American dream, open to everyone with opportunities to become anything a person wants to be. What exactly the next chapter of my life in education will be, I’m not sure.

My family life has also had, and continues to have, many chapters. Over the years these chapters included persons close to me dying and other persons being born and marriages both expected and unexpected.

There have been chapters in my family life which have seen young people graduating and moving on and other persons of all ages redefining who they are. I suspect the story of my family will inevitably have another chapter before long, to be determined.

I hope, dear reader, I have encouraged you to think about your next life chapter. I trust you and I will embrace these upcoming chapters and move forward — learning from past experiences — with courage and joy.

John Spevak wrote this for the Los Banos Enterprise. His email address is john.spevak@gmail.com.