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COUPLE HOPES DONATED STATUE ENCOURAGES READING

By Lewis Delavan/Stephens Media
Friday, November 27, 2009 11:28 PM CST

BENTON — Happy days of reading as a child at a public library led to a lifetime love of books for former Pine Bluff resident Joyce Faulkner.

She recalled visiting the Saline County Library frequently while growing up in Benton. Founded in 1934, the year she was born, the library offered entertainment in a time prior to television.

An only child, Faulkner was by herself a lot.

“I read all the time, and I read all summer,” said Faulkner, now 75. “It was very important to me.”

As an adult, weekly visits to see her mother always included a visit to the library, as well.

To show their gratitude to the library, Joyce Faulkner and her husband, Jim Faulkner, donated a brass statue that was recently installed outside the Bob Herzfeld Memorial branch in Benton.

The sculpture depicts two children reclining on a log; one is reading, the other has fallen asleep.

The statue is dedicated to the memory of Joyce Faulkner’s parents, Jess and Velma Moore, who are buried next to the library in Rosemont Cemetery.

“They are looking over it,” she said. “Mother would have been 100 years old this year.”

Her mother was a secretary/bookkeeper. Her father was in construction.

Joyce Faulkner is a 1952 graduate of Benton High School. Jim Faulkner, a Malvern native, earned a journalism degree from the University of Arkansas and started an advertising and publishing company in Pine Bluff.

He was living there when the couple met through mutual friends. She was selling real estate in Pine Bluff at the time. He later moved the company to Little Rock and is now retired.

The Faulkners had parents who read to them frequently. It created a habit.

“Both of us read a lot,” she said.

The couple enjoy libraries so much that they visit them while traveling. They even visited the local library during a trip to Timbuktu, Mali.

The city was once a major cultural and business center for northern Africa, and they were told the library had some special scrolls. They endured a long bus ride in 110-degree heat in an open-air bus through Mali’s Sahara desert. Upon arrival, they found the scrolls were not available for viewing. Overall, they found Timbuktu’s library underwhelming.

The Faulkners previously donated a mural that is located in the children’s area on the Herzfeld branch’s lower level of the Saline County library.

“That was fun,” she said. “It’s been really popular with the children.”

Once deciding to donate a statue, she searched the Internet and immediately fell in love with the sculpture they chose.

“I probably looked just like that when I was a child,” she said. “There’s a lot of statues out there, but not just exactly what I wanted.

“It’s neat. I think it’s perfect. I love it. The toenails are perfect. One of them’s gone to sleep. The book’s still on his tummy. The other one is trying to read.”

Finding it on the Internet was one thing. Actually acquiring the work was another.

“They first told me they didn’t have one like it,” she said. “We got a letter back saying they had located it.”

The statue was delivered within 10 days.

The Faulkners have five children between them, and eight grandchildren. They strived to instill a love of learning.

“We’ve always read to them,” Joyce Faulkner said.

“The girls are better readers than the boys,” Jim Faulkner said.

“Just like the statue,” she added.

They hope the library’s statue will encourage youths for generations.

“We want to instill a love of reading in young people,” Joyce Faulkner said.

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