Jackie Cornette: Western Branch of the Watauga County Library, Sugar Grove, NC.(PARAPROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR 2007)(North Carolina)(Cover story)

If you find you're on a hayride to a pumpkin patch or you're a senior citizen line dancing with your granddaughter and you're near Sugar Grove, NC, it is a safe bet that Jackie Cornette had a hand in creating the event. Cornette is manager of the Western Branch of the Watauga County Library (WCL). WCL is one of three county library systems that comprise the Appalachian Regional Library (ARL), headquartered in North Wilkesboro. (The other two are the Ashe County Library and Wilkes County Library.)

"Jackie Cornette has been a shining star in ARL since 1988," says Louise Humphrey, ARL director. "Jackie is a leader, a risk taker, and an explorer of uncharted waters."

It is that set of qualities and attitudes, and the really great work she's done with them, that made Jackie Cornette the LJ Paraprofessional of the Year for 2007.

Building services

Cornette also instituted a Teen Reader program that brought dozens of hard-to-reach adolescents to the library. That program is still growing, and Cornette constantly thinks up new ways to attract the teens and others in Watauga County.

Without asking, Cornette decided her branch would be the first library in ARL to lend laptop computers so students and seniors alike can use them anywhere they want for a few days. The Western Branch is still the only one of the five ARL libraries to lend laptops. …