Friends group holds 2025 reception

The Friends of Joyner Library’s 2025 banquet and reception was held May 13, including awards handed out to Academic Library Service director Jan Lewis and longtime library and East Carolina University supporter Mike Taylor.

Books about Paul Green and North Carolina Literary Review editions are displayed in the Faulkner Gallery for the meeting.

Lewis provided remarks during the program along with keynote speaker, ECU’s Dr. Margaret Bauer, who presented “Paul Green – More than The Lost Colony” to discuss Green’s career and legacy. Not only was Green known as the author of “The Lost Colony,” he was a prolific writer of screenplays, dramas, short stories and novels. Green also was a passionate advocate for human rights.

Moments to highlight prior to Bauer’s presentation included the recognition of the board of directors, and the election of new member Elizabeth Swaggerty and election of Johnnee Rice as new president and Laura Mangum vice president. Outgoing president, Kaye Dotson, received ECU Pirate-themed gifts and was lauded for her dedication and leadership as president of the Friends of Joyner Library, which was established in 1978 and is the oldest Friends group at ECU.

Dotson will remain on the board in the past president role.

Taylor earned the Janice Steed Lewis Award and corresponding trophy. The Rare Friend Award was presented by Dotson to Lewis, highlighting the leadership and initiative Lewis has displayed as ALS director and library advocate.

Jan Lewis was presented flowers and the Rare Friend Award by Friends of the Joyner Library president Kaye Dotson, left, during the banquet.

Bauer then delivered the featured program. She is the Rives Chair of Southern Literature in the Department of English, a distinguished professor in the Harriot College of Arts and Science and editor of the North Carolina Literary Review. She has earned numerous awards in teaching, research and literature, including in 2017 with the North Carolina Award for Literature from Gov. Roy Cooper and the R. Hunt Parker Memorial Award from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, for her significant contributions to North Carolina Literature.

Online sales and more information through Blair Publisher is available about the book, “Paul Green: North Carolina Writers on the Legacy of the State’s Most Celebrated Playwright.” Bauer is a writer and editor for the book.