In His Hands: A Journey of an Adopted Child

Mary Ayres, the manager of the South Campus Learning Resources Center (LRC), is retiring effective August 31, 2011, after serving Southern State Community College for thirty years. Known to her colleagues and friends as the "Queen," Mary came to Southern State in 1979 as a CETA worker. After a year and a half of training, she was officially hired by Southern State. She was a library aide and later was promoted to library technician. In 1995, she became the manager of the South Campus LRC and library. An outspoken advocate for library support staff, Mary has been an active member of the Ohio Library Support Staff Institute (OLSSI) and the Support Staff Interest Group (SSIG) of the Academic Library Association of Ohio (ALAO). She served as camp counselor for OLSSI and chaired SSIG several times. Mary is also a member of the American Library Association. Through her leadership, these organizations have grown over the years and now represent library support staff in most of Ohio's libraries. When you've worked at a place for over thirty years, you leave a legacy behind. Mary's legacy is her ability to coordinate social events. She started the annual women's tea and heads a team of library staff each year planning events for National Library Week. Because of Mary's inspiration and hard work, SSCC is known far and wide every April for innovative activities and programs during National Library Week. In fact, her expertise on programming in the library has led to numerous speaking engagements at various conferences in Ohio. Mary was awarded the prestigious SWON Libraries Support Staff of the Year Award in 2011. She was also awarded the Award of Appreciation from ALAO in 2009. Mary completed the associate of business degree from the Portsmouth Interstate Business College. Mary is an active member of her community in West Union. She is a member of the Adams County Women's Club and the Ladies' Christian Service. She is very involved at the Church of Christ, where she serves as youth sponsor, small group leader, the ministry of discipleship, Sunday school teacher, and the Praise Team. Mary has served the college community as ACT Site Supervisor for twenty years.