Bandera High School library renamed

Tomorrow, May 26, the Bandera High School Library will be renamed to the Patsy Small Memorial Library during a special ceremony starting at 2 p.m.

Patricia “Patsy” Small served as librarian for Bandera High School from 1985 to 2011, a title her brother said was her “dream job.”

Small brought the library into the digital age, replacing card catalogs with a fully digital system. She continued to find ways to bring the library into the digital age, such as teaching herself HTML in order to create the library’s first web page.

In the early 2000s, Small designed a new library, which is still in use today.

In a presentation to the BISD school board last month, Jettie Whitlock, retired Bandera Middle School and Bandera High School Librarian, was quoted as saying small paved the way for the librarians who would follow her.

She was our cataloguing expert, our tech expert, our school library policies developer and expert. Patsy Small was the heart and soul of the libraries in our schools and our communities,” said Whitlock. “She spent much of her own time working in the community libraries with children’s summer programming. She planned, she read and she crafted, with all ages of children, and they knew her before they ever got to school!”

Small passed away in 2011. Her grandson walks the stage at Bulldog Stadium during graduation later this month.

The ceremony will take place at 474 Old San Antonio Highway in Bandera. A reception follows.