The Legacy of Linda Shaw

Across the storied chapters and generations of a rich rivalry shared between geographical neighbors in the Town of Prosper and the City of Celina, very little love was shared, and even fewer gestures of kindness were expressed between communities steeped in passion for their hometowns. Athletic competitions and their outcomes most often fueled the fires of what some would recall as bitterness felt by one place and people towards the other. Celina faithful would never be caught wearing Prosper Green, and Bobcat Orange was forbidden south of the Ownsby Farm. “It’s just the way it was,” legacy residents in Celina would say. The two towns simply had very little in common. Except one thing; well, one person. Linda Shaw.

Despite the power and prowess of the athletic teams they would field for those highly-anticipated games, their municipal budgets lacked any such shine. And with volunteer firefighters responding to emergencies and county-provided deputies policing the region, a salary for a librarian was certainly not something either farming community could afford. Unless, of course, Prosper and Celina could agree, for once, to share something. They met Linda Shaw and were captivated by her love for literacy, and children, and community, and they finally found someone worth appreciating together.

For a number of years, Linda Shaw quietly divided her time as librarian for the City of Celina and for the Town of Prosper. As she did everywhere she went, she built robust library systems with the same intensity with which she built lasting friendships. Her friendship was so rich that peers said she was more like family to the people she served. She cared authentically and loved deeply. Books were her tool and reading her method of reaching inside of an individual and unlocking something special from the heart and soul of everyone with whom she shared her literary love. In two distinct hometowns, separated by only a few miles, Shaw became a shared fixture. Her knowledge of what it would take to build a successful library and her vision for the way to do it with excellence laid the groundwork for both communities to have the library services they enjoy today.

As for Celina, she is the only Director of Library Services we ever knew. In 2009, when the Wichita, Kansas, native arrived on the historic Downtown Square, she saw a suite of offices set aside to become a library. She never really saw the offices; she could already see the library. It wasn’t surprising to anyone that, within a number of months, books filled the space, and the people soon followed. Her passion, by her own admission in a recent podcast interview, was people. And though her formal education training was in music, she always loved books and spent time around libraries, and realized that was a path that would allow her to best brush with people. The library next to City Hall was a place where both reading and relationships flourished.

Her dream and vision for Celina’s library continuously reached beyond traditional bookshelves. She wanted to build collections while she expanded imaginations. If one was a crafter or an entrepreneur, by her own words, she wanted them to have a place in our Celina Public Library. She was a master of having books donated and maximizing the space she had, even as it became more and more inadequate over the years. She was often an overlooker of big fines, as long as the borrower returned the book. She was even part-time counselor, like the time a Police Officer’s wife came in to see her in a panic, because her husband told her that if she didn’t get her library fine paid, she could be arrested.

Linda laughed and loved to retell this story over the years. Just like she loved story time and all of the children’s programming at the library. She celebrated when it was loud, and the atmosphere was fun. With toddlers, she would get under a parachute; with infants, she would read with expression and emotion that would widen their eyes, while endearing their mothers to the library for life. She watched those babies grow up and made sure to stay on those parents about keeping Celina’s youth reading as they grew.

Linda Shaw’s final season as the Director of Library Services for the City of Celina was spent in more of a design-build role. Her greatest joy centered around the construction soon to burst forth from the land behind City Hall. She longed to see the new municipal complex built, and believed the space reserved for her new library could be the crown jewel of the project for generations to come. In her heart and through her clear vision for the project, she could already smell the pages of the books, and hear the joy of the children, and be renewed knowing readers would have a beautiful space in this City to gather and connect with traditional and non-traditional library services.

Perhaps the only thing more pronounced than Linda’s vision was her quiet, enduring faith. It had sustained her through many turns and trials in life and library service. And it was also the spark that fueled her to love and serve people with the same intensity she dreamed about that construction project that would finally afford Celina a library and the necessary services for a community like this. Sadly, for the residents of Celina and for her colleagues she loved in this City and our neighbors to the south, Linda’s faith became sight before her new library could. Yet, in the hours and days following her passing, her legacy was already on full display as people and places she had loved and served now stood and served in her place.

In death, just as in her impactful life, Linda Shaw, once again, brought out the best in the two former rival hometowns she had once served when that was all but forbidden. It is only fitting that, in her final moments of need, first responders from Celina and Prosper were both by her side providing care and comfort for her. Leslie Scott, Prosper’s Director of Library Services, stepped in and faithfully served the staff in Celina so that the normal and regulatory functions of Linda’s library on the Square didn’t miss a beat as those closest to her grieved her sudden loss. Celina lit the historic Water Tower to honor Linda’s life, as all would have expected. But for those who number their years lived in this area in decades, her impact was, perhaps, most recognized as the Town of Prosper—for multiple nights—unprecedentedly lit the top of their town hall in Bobcat orange, to honor the life and love and legacy of Linda Shaw.

Celina residents and our friends will never forget the vision, passion, and leadership of Director of Library Services Linda Shaw. From us, she is gone too soon. But for us, she made a mark on our lives, our love for reading, and the spirit of this community that will, forever, be remembered.