Donald Farris wrote:It makes me think of a song:
"Don't it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone"
from Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell
Don
This was true with Joe Madak, however I fear when we lose Mr Warren he might be gone for good.
No person has been as valuable to the city of Lakewood as Kenneth Warren. A true fountain of knowledge and more importantly deeply intune with the true undercurrents of Lakewood, the region, the country and the world. More than anyone I have every met or worked with.
I fear this might have been his undoing. Mr. Warren is one hundred percent open to one and all. The perfect director of a city's most valuable resource, it's library. A true center to learn and discuss intelligence, arts, politics, life, history, future, whatever. Ken is and was always there to make sure everyone could learn and understand the topic from all sides.
Ken's library and his principles goes back to the great libraries of Athens, Thibes, Alexandria. This might be what brought us together 8 years ago. Our mutual thoughts that libraries are the true center of life in a city. And that they only way to move a city forward, and understand it, was through knowledge and open public civic discourse.
His understanding of this community spreads over 25 years. As I thought about it, the only other analogy I could think of was, the Queen of England, but even that falls short. I am not sure she understands her residents anywhere near as well as Ken does the residents, and groups in Lakewood. What is the value of a person of his intelligence, and hobby of deeply studying humans, spread over 25 years, to a mayor, a superintendent, a police officer, a parent, a student, a reporter, a civic group, a city?
PRICELESS
Like him or not, Ken Warren is the Mick Jagger of Library Directors, though he would use another star I am sure. Nearly every week, job offers would pour in, from St. Louis, Detroit, etc. To my knowledge he never even bothered with them, his heart and his soul was/is deeply in Lakewood.
I am sure that a majority of success over the past 20 years in Lakewood had Ken involved, and those that did not work or pan out, did not, or the people behind it did not listen to Mr. Warren.
I have asked him repeatedly what would keep him here. His answer is always "it is time to move on." I always wonder why now?
We are truly losing the most valuable person in Lakewood.
Maybe we should all ask why?
Ken, good luck my friend, if there is anyway I can ever help, I will be there, as you have always been for me, and this city.
PEACE
PS_I could have told some great stories but I know we are both using them in our books.
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