The Richland Parish Library was founded April 15, 1926, in a room at Rayville’s school. Somebody from the Beacon was there to write about it. They didn’t take pictures. That wasn’t much of a thing back then.
The library turned 100 last week. People from the school board and the Beacon were there again. This time, we took pictures.
Times change. But some things don’t. The library and the schools are still at the center of this parish. They always have been. They’re where people learn, where they grow, where they connect. And none of that happens on its own.
It happens because people show up.
Richland Parish has never been easy to define. Most parishes in north Louisiana have one main town. We don’t. Most have one school system, one football team, one mascot. We have five – and seven elementary schools. Most parishes have one dominant town. Ask people what the main town in Richland Parish is. I dare you.
What we do have is a lot of moving parts. A lot of communities. A lot of people trying to make something work that probably shouldn’t.
And the only reason it does is because people stay engaged. They communicate. They put in the work.
The Beacon has been here 158 years. Without schools and without the library, it wouldn’t have made it this far. Newspapers don’t survive in places where people don’t read. They don’t survive in places where people stop caring.
Every business in this parish depends on those institutions, whether they realize it or not. When schools struggle, when the library struggles, everything around them feels it.
Right now, both are changing. They have to.
Schools are teaching things that didn’t exist a century ago. Kids are building robots in junior high. The library isn’t just shelves anymore. It lives on phones and computers. People can check out books, audiobooks, entire collections without ever walking through the door.
You can even get the Beacon that way now.
Jules Verne wasn’t predicting that 100 years ago. If you don’t know who that is, ask your English teacher or go to the library and look him up. You’ll be glad you did.
The tools have changed.
The mission hasn’t. Teach people to read. Give them somewhere to learn. Give them a way to connect.
That only works if someone is there to keep it going.
It’s not about the buildings. It never has been.
It’s about the people inside them. The ones who show up every day to keep the doors open, to teach, to guide, to help, to hold things together when it would be easier to let them fall apart.
It’s hard work. Most days, it’s thankless.
But it matters. I won’t be here for the 200th anniversary of the library. But somebody from the Beacon will be, probably talking to somebody from the schools.
I just hope whoever is sitting at this desk in 2126 gets to work with the same kind of people I’ve been blessed to work with.
Because that’s the part that makes all of this last.
Darryl Riser is editor of the Richland Beacon-News.
