About 20 people were gathered in the Heritage Room of the Cedarholm Library for the reunion of former library employees--including its most long-tenured employee and its First Family, of sorts.
Teresa Herbert ('05), Jodi Herbert ('07), and current student body president John (Chip) Herbert V have all worked at the library. Tricia Herbert is next in line.
Louise Budahl is finishing up her time at the college, the only employee to have worked all 40 years here consecutively. She originally came to Maranatha as secretary to college founder Dr. B. Myron Cedarholm in June of 1968, then switched to full-time library work in the mid-1980s. Her original typewriter can be viewed at the Dining Complex as part of the Memory Lane display.
"I lived in the Pederson Funeral Home when I came," recalled Mrs. Budahl (left, with daughter Hope Robertson). "I would drive over to the Cedarholm's house on West Street and sit at their kitchen table and type. I moved into Century House that fall with three other secretaries, including Linda Carlson. The wood ceiling was so dark ... we eventually got tired of it and just painted it."
She also remembers typing "thousands" of card catalogue entries by hand--so many, in fact, that the college waited until Mrs. Budahl had taken a day off to destroy them after adopting a computerized card-catalogue system. One set of the cards was given to her as a gesture of appreciation for all that typing.