       One of the highlights of last week’s 110th Birthday Celebration of the Chadron Public Library was the presentation of the first Doris Harrington Library Volunteer of the Year Award to artist and former Library Board member Kit Watson.
The award is named for and funded by the family of Doris Harrington, herself a long-time Library Board member and volunteer along with Watson.
Watson, the sister-in-law of Hall of Fame football coach Tom Osborne, came to Chadron in 1976 with her late husband George, an attorney and Chadron State College professor.
     She left her first lasting mark on the Library in 1979, painting the mural that still decorates the mural on the stairway leading to the basement – and she did it while pregnant with her first child, current Chadron State Foundation Executive Director Ben Watson.
In 1992, she painted the portraits of library benefactors and sisters Pauline Moody and Mabel Stickney that still hang just inside the main entrance to the library.
Kit Watson co-taught an art class at the library in 1997, and in 2007 took a seat on the Library Board, which she held for 10 years.
     She was one of the leaders in the push for an addition to the library that would more than double its size and drew several sketches of what the addition might look like.Â
Watson was also one of the leaders in the Library Board purchasing the private residence due south of the library as the site of the expansion.
Part of the $640,000 Shovel-Ready infrastructure grant the library received earlier this month will be used to remove the house and prepare the site for construction, although there’s no firm timetable on fundraising or construction.
In addition to providing the money for the Volunteer of the Year, the Harrington family last week donated $5,000 toward a secure research-rare book room in the library addition.