By Emily Williams-Robertshaw
The O’Neal Library will honor its 2021 Tynes Award recipient, longtime volunteer and board member Penny Page, during the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce’s annual luncheon April 27.
The luncheon also will honor this year’s Jemison Visionary Award Winner, former Mountain Brook Mayor Terry Oden, and the 2021 City of Mountain Brook Employee of the Year, Detective Drew Moore.
The 2021 chamber luncheon will take place in the great outdoors at the Birmingham Zoo from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m.
The Tynes award annually recognizes a group or individual who has gone above and beyond in service to the library as well as the city of Mountain Brook. It is named in honor of former Mountain Brook City Councilman Williams Tynes Jr., who helped establish the Mountain Brook Library Foundation and served as its president from 2003-2008.
Like Tynes, Page has a longstanding history with the O’Neal Library. It has been a part of her life since her childhood in Mountain Brook.
Her grandparents, Elizabeth and Kirkman O’Neal, gave the seed money used to create the library in 1965 through their family’s foundation.
“I grew up going there,” Page said. “I used to go with my parents or my grandparents to pick out books.”
The facility remained a part of her life into her adulthood, when she took the opportunity to volunteer and give back to the community.
“When I was in the Junior League of Birmingham, my placement was at the library, sorting books,” Page said.
In addition, she served on the Junior Women’s Committee of 100, which was created to support the library’s children’s department. The group puts on the library’s annual Summer Reading Carnival, an event that is close to Page’s heart and is a beloved tradition in her eyes.
Due to the pandemic, the library will be restructuring the carnival this year, opting to host a drive-thru Popsicle Summer Reading Kick-Off on May 25. From 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., the library will pass out free Steel City Pops as well as summer reading prize bags.
In 2008, Page was placed on the library’s board of trustees, serving an unprecedented three terms before leaving the board in 2020.
“We typically serve two terms, but I have served for three,” Page said. When the previous library director, former Tynes award-winner Sue DeBrecht, decided to retire in 2017, Page was asked to stay on and aid in current library director Lindsy Gardner’s transition.
“I’ve always had a vested interest in the library,” Page said. “I took my own children to story time there, and it has just always been a part of my life.”
In 2002, her family’s foundation helped fund the construction of the library’s current building.
Page later was the liaison between library officials and contractors redesigning the library’s garden. She worked with landscape architect Mary Zahl to create a space that includes seating, arbors and blooming foliage.
Funded by gifts in memory of late library supporter Mary Moren Crommelin, the gardens were rededicated in 2012.
According to Page, the long-standing success of the library is due to staff members who go above and beyond to serve the public, even during the pandemic; strong partnerships between the city schools and government; and the people of Mountain Brook who hold the facility in such high regard.
“It’s a real privilege to live in a community that places a real value on reading and education,” Page said. “The library has been so successful because of that. Young mothers want to take their children to story time and check out a book.”
During the chambers’ luncheon, Page will be honored alongside Oden and Moore.
“You don’t ever feel deserving of an award, but I’m just honored to be a part of it,” Page said.
For more information, visit mtnbrookchamber.org.
